Here you have an impression of a high-mass x-ray binary (HMXB), in which a blue giant (right) orbits a compact object such as a neutron star or black hole. The blue giant has a powerful stellar wind, shown radiating outwards here. Some of this materi...

... , because the blue star is not sufficiently distorted. Instead, the accretion disc is created by material sucked in from the blue giant's immense stellar wind. ...

... sometimes a black hole. The giant star is distorted owing to its proximity to its highly compact partner. Gas flows from the blue giant towards the black hole/neutron star and forms a gaseous pancake called an accretion disc. As it spirals to its doo ...

Stars come in many sizes and colours, as this diagram for my ...

Here is a different kind of x-ray binary. In the foreground (top) is a hot star called a Be star. It spins so quickly that it is surrounded by a circumstellar disc of matter, flung off via centrifugal force. The Be star is in orbit around a tiny and ...

This animation compares the sizes of all the planets in the Solar System, starting with the smallest, Mercury, and increasing in size up until Jupiter. It then goes on comparing the Sun to other, larger stars. The concentric circles which appear towa...

In some x-ray binary systems matter is transferred from one star to the other via the donor star's stellar wind. The stellar wind, like the Sun's solar wind, is a steady stream of particles that blasts away from the star's surface and out into space....