  The accretion of matter onto black holes and neutron stars often leads to the
launching of outflows that can greatly affect the environments surrounding the
compact object. In supermassive black holes, these outflows can even be
powerful enough to dictate the evolution of the entire host galaxy, and yet, to
date, we do not understand how these so-called accretion disk winds are
launched - whether by radiation pressure, magnetic forces, thermal irradiation,
or a combination thereof. An important means of studying disk winds produced
near the central compact object is through X-ray absorption line spectroscopy,
which allows us to probe outflow properties along a single line of sight, but
usually provides little information about the global 3D disk wind structure
that is vital for understanding the launching mechanism and total wind energy
budget. Here, we study Hercules X-1, a unique, nearly edge-on X-ray binary with
a warped accretion disk precessing with a period of about 35 days. This disk
precession results in changing sightlines towards the neutron star, through the
ionized outflow. We perform time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy over the
precession phase and detect a strong decrease in the wind column density by
three orders of magnitude as our sightline progressively samples the wind at
greater heights above the accretion disk. The wind becomes clumpier as it rises
upwards and expands away from the neutron star. Modelling the warped disk
shape, we create a 2D map of wind properties. This unique measurement of the
vertical structure of an accretion disk wind allows direct comparisons to 3D
global simulations to reveal the outflow launching mechanism.
