Radio , infrared , and optical observations of the 2006 eruption of the symbiotic recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi ( RS Oph ) showed that the explosion produced non-spherical ejecta .
Some of this ejected material was in the form of bipolar jets to the east and west of the central source .
Here we describe X-ray observations taken with the Chandra X-ray Observatory one and a half years after the beginning of the outburst that reveal narrow , extended structure with a position angle of approximately 300 degrees ( east of north ) .
Although the orientation of the extended feature in the X-ray image is consistent with the readout direction of the CCD detector , extensive testing suggests that the feature is not an artifact .
Assuming it is not an instrumental effect , the extended X-ray structure shows hot plasma stretching more than 1,900 AU from the central binary ( taking a distance of 1.6 kpc ) .
The X-ray emission is elongated in the northwest direction — in line with the extended infrared emission and some minor features in the published radio image .
It is less consistent with the orientation of the radio jets and the main bipolar optical structure .
Most of the photons in the extended X-ray structure have energies of less than 0.8 keV .
If the extended X-ray feature was produced when the nova explosion occurred , then its 1 ^ { \prime \prime } .2 length as of 2007 August implies that it expanded at an average rate of more than 2 mas d ^ { -1 } , which corresponds to a flow speed of greater than 6,000 km/s ( d/1.6 kpc ) in the plane of the sky .
This expansion rate is similar to the earliest measured expansion rates for the radio jets .