Is Cygnus X-3 strange?

We discuss the recently reported measurements of the properties of high energy cosmic rays arriving from the direction of the compact binary X-ray source Cygnus X-3. We argue that the source of these events may be a strange quark star, and that the primary which directly produces them is a low baryon number neutral hadron with multiple strangeness which is stable up to (at least) simultaneous double strangeness changing weak decays.

This work is supported in part through funds provided by the US Department of Energy (DOE) under contract #DE-AC02-76ER03069.