Dartmouth Events

Abstract: RS Oph is an interacting binary system that experiences nova eruptions on an approximately 20 year time scale with the recent eruption within the last year and the prior eruption in 2006. The 2006 eruption was studied across the electromagnetic spectrum and monitored for years by the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes. The multiwavelength observations reveal an expanding bipolar structure perpendicularly aligned with the binary system. In this talk I highlight recent publication of work on the expanding bipolar structure seen in X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. I discuss how it was detected, the physics probed by the detection, and what the discovery tells us about the recurrent novae phenomenon and the late stages of binary star evolution.