Chandra Release - October 22, 2020

Visual Description: 4U 1916-53

The intriguing system known as 4U 1916-053 contains two stars in a remarkably close orbit. One is the core of a star that has had its outer layers stripped away, leaving a star that is much denser than the Sun. The other is a neutron star, an even denser object created when a massive star collapses in a supernova explosion. The main panel is an artist's illustration with a plot of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in an inset at upper left. In the illustration, a neutron star (a ball colored in grey) is shown at the center of a disk of hot gas in reds and yellows, pulled away from its companion (a distorted white and peach colored star on the left). These two compact stars in 4U 1916-053 are only about 215,000 miles apart, roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon. While the Moon orbits our planet once a month, the dense companion star in 4U 1916-053 whips around the neutron star and completes a full orbit in only 50 minutes.