X-Ray Stars of 47 Tuc

Explanation: Visible light images show the central region of globular cluster 47 Tuc anae is closely packed, with stars less than a tenth of a light-year apart. This Chandra false-color x-ray view of central 47 Tuc also shows the cluster is a popular neighborhood for x-ray stars , many of which are “normal” stars co-orbiting with extremely dense neutron stars -- stars with the mass of the Sun but the diameter of Manhattan Island. One of the most remarkable of these exotic binary systems is cataloged as 47 Tuc W, a bright source near the center of this image. The system consists of a low mass star and a a neutron star that spins once every 2.35 milliseconds . Such neutron stars are known to radio astronomers as millisecond pulsars , believed to be driven to such rapid rotation by material falling from the normal star onto its dense companion. In fact, x-ray observations of the 47 Tuc W system link this spin-up mechanism observed to operate in other x-ray binary stars with fast rotating millisecond pulsars .