What are the main types of star clusters?
The three basic types of clusters astronomers have discovered are globular clusters, open clusters, and stellar associations.
How do you determine a star cluster?
By determining the mass of the main-sequence turnoff stars, we get the age of the cluster. The cluster age equals the main-sequence lifetime of the turnoff stars. This is one of the ways we have studied the age of the Universe and the formation history of the Galaxy.
How are star clusters created?
Star Clusters. When stars are born they develop from large clouds of molecular gas. This means that they form in groups or clusters, since molecular clouds are composed of hundreds of solar masses of material. After the remnant gas is heated and blow away, the stars collect together by gravity.
How many stars are there in a globular cluster?
100,000
What is another name for open star clusters?
galactic clusters
How many open clusters are in the Milky Way?
1,100 open clusters
What does a globular star cluster look like?
In a telescope, a globular cluster looks like a fuzzy ball, with individual stars at the periphery merging into a solid ball of light towards the center. However, this is simply because the stars are so close together that they can’t be resolved individually telescopically.
Where are open clusters found in the Milky Way?
disk of the Galaxy
Which clusters are found in the Milky Way?
Globular star clusters are known to be located mostly in the great spherical halo of the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies like our Milky Way contain stars, gas and dust, mostly organized into a flat disk containing the spiral arms, but with the addition of a more rounded bulge and halo, centered on the galaxy’s center.
What is the relationship between globular clusters and the Milky Way?
So the globular clusters (which contain very old stars) reveal a spherical component of the Milky Way, while the open clusters and other young stars and star-forming regions reveal a disk-shaped component of the Milky Way.
What is our galaxy cluster called?
Virgo Cluster
What’s bigger than the Galaxy?
The Milky Way is big, but some galaxies, like our Andromeda Galaxy neighbor, are much larger. The universe is all of the galaxies – billions of them! NASA’s telescopes allow us to study galaxies beyond our own in exquisite detail, and to explore the most distant reaches of the observable universe.
How many galaxies are in cluster?
Galaxy clusters typically have the following properties: They contain 100 to 1,000 galaxies, hot X-ray emitting gas and large amounts of dark matter. Details are described in the “Composition” section. The distribution of the three components is approximately the same in the cluster.
How far away is the nearest galaxy cluster?
11 million light years