Chandra X-ray Images of Fornax Cluster
This Chandra X-ray image, along with the optical image, shows the region around NGC 1399 and NGC 1404, two of the largest galaxies in the Fornax galaxy cluster. By combining 15 days’ worth of Chandra observing of Fornax spread out between 1999 and 2015, astronomers discovered that about 30 pairs of stars — or "binaries" — had been expelled from galaxies in the cluster. This can happen when one of the binary’s stars explodes as a supernova and forms a neutron star. The recoil from the explosion can kick the star so that it is expelled from its home galaxy. These Chandra results show that sometimes a neutron star’s companion star can be forced to exit the galaxy as well. These images also show DSS optical data for the same field of view as the Chandra data.
(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/McGill University/X. Jin et al.)