  The exact composition of a specific class of compact stars, historically
referred to as "neutron stars", is still quite unknown. Possibilities ranging
from hadronic to quark degrees of freedom, including self-bound versions of the
latter have been proposed. We specifically address the suitability of strange
star models (including pairing interactions) in this work, in the light of new
measurements available for four compact stars. The analysis shows that these
data might be explained by such an exotic equation of state, actually selecting
a small window in parameter space, but still new precise measurements and also
further theoretical developments are needed to settle the subject.
