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Microquasars in our Galaxy

Nature volume 392, pages 673–676 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Microquasars are stellar-mass black holes in our Galaxy that mimic, on a smaller scale, many of the phenomena seen in quasars. Their discovery opens the way for a new understanding of the connection between the accretion of matter onto black holes and the origin of the relativistic jets observed in remote quasars.

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Figure 1: Diagram illustrating current ideas about quasars and microquasars (not to scale).
Figure 2: A pair of plasma clouds expelled from the microquasar GRS1915+105, the first superluminal source detected in the galaxy2.
Figure 3: Oscillations in the luminosity at X-rays (2–60 keV), infrared (2 µm) and radio (6 cm) wavelengths of the galactic source of superluminal jets CRS1915+105 (ref. 7).

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Acknowledgements

We have benefited from discussions with colleagues at the Goddard workshop on Microquasars, and we thank J. Swank and A. Harmon for organizing this workshop.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DAPNIA/CEA Centre d'Études de Saclay, 91191, Gif/Yvette, France

    I. F. Mirabel

  2. Instituto de Astronéma, UNAM y Física del Espacio, cc67, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina

    I. F. Mirabel

  3. the Instituto de Astroníma, UNAM, Morelia, 58090, Michoacán, Mexico

    L. F. Rodríguez

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  1. I. F. Mirabel
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  2. L. F. Rodríguez
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Correspondence to I. F. Mirabel.

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Mirabel, I., Rodríguez, L. Microquasars in our Galaxy. Nature 392, 673–676 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/33603

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