The paper considers the implications of recent refinements in both the measured masses of the binary components of pulsar PSR 1913 + 16 and the theory of massive star evolution upon the history of its progenitor system. It is stressed that the gravitational mass of the neutron star that remains following a supernova explosion is less, by approximately 10 to 15 percent, than the mass of the compact core which collapsed, the difference being carried away by neutrinos during and after the supernova explosion. The consequently large baryon masses inferred for the iron cores that collapsed to form the components of this binary, coupled with the results of recent calculations of presupernova structures, and supernova explosions imply that the most likely scenario for producing PSR 1913 + 16 involved two stars whose masses were between 16 and 18 solar masses.
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Burrows et al. (1986) studied this question.