Ancient star clusters are the fossils of the astronomical world.
Using the Keck Observatory, an international team of researchers led by Professor Forbes of Swinburne University of Technology has determined
ancient star clusters, known as globular clusters, formed in two epochs — 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago.
Not exact matches
«Hubble makes the first precise distance measurement to an
ancient globular
star cluster.»
These images showcase the
ancient globular
cluster 47 Tucanae, a dense swarm of up to a million
stars.
Later this year, astronomers will begin a new sky survey to look for signs of the stuff among exploding
stars and
ancient galaxy
clusters.
«The Milky Way's
ancient heart: VISTA finds remains of archaic globular
star cluster.»
As RR Lyrae
stars typically reside in
ancient stellar populations over 10 billion years old, this discovery suggests that the bulging centre of the Milky Way likely grew through the merging of primordial
star clusters.
RR Lyrae
stars allow exact distance estimations and are found only in stellar populations more than 10 billion years old, for example, in
ancient halo globular
clusters.
Most globular
clusters are judged to be
ancient because the
stars in them suffer from a sort of cosmic anemia — they contain very few metals.
Among the stunning shots taken this week were those of the Lagoon Nebula, about 3600 light years away from Earth; the 47 Tucanae
cluster of several million
ancient stars about 15,000 light years from Earth; and the face - on barred spiral galaxy NGC 6744 in the
star - rich southern constellation of Pavo, about 30 million light years away.
Known since
ancient times as the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades
Cluster (below, right) contains about 1,000 young
stars that formed roughly 100 million years ago.
The Milky Way's dense globular
clusters are spherical swarms of red, lightweight and
ancient stars, most of them more than 10 billion years old.
Globular
Clusters are a fascinating objects to view and can be easily seen with binoculars, they are groups of
ancient stars huddled together and orbiting the central bulge of our galaxy.
STScI / NASA press releases: Hubble Makes the First Precise Distance Measurement to an
Ancient Globular
Star Cluster Hubble Unmasks Ghost Galaxies Deepest View of Space Yields Young
Stars in Andromeda Halo Hubble Identifies Source of Ultraviolet Light in an Old Galaxy ESA press releases: Hubble Unmasks Ghost Galaxies Four Unusual Views of the Andromeda Galaxy Public speaking: On the Trail of the Missing Galaxies High - Level Science Products from Large and Treasury Programs: GO - 9453: The Age of the Andromeda Halo (126 orbits) GO - 10265: The Formation History of Andromeda (107 orbits) GO - 10816: The Formation History of Andromeda's Extended Metal - Poor Halo (128 orbits) GO - 11664 / 12666: The WFC3 Galactic Bulge Treasury Program: Populations, Formation History and Planets (56 orbits) GO - 12549: The Formation History of the Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies (113 orbits)
Others, known as globular
clusters, are among the oldest objects in the Universe and contain up to a million
ancient stars.
The destruction of a planet may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but a team of astronomers has found evidence that this may have happened in an
ancient globular
cluster of
stars at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.
Globular
clusters are
ancient balls of
stars that exist in the halo of galaxies.
Webb will analyze the composition of these
ancient stars, and perhaps reveal whether globular
clusters formed along with our galaxy or originated somewhere else, and were later absorbed into the galaxy.
As a halo field
star with the lowest metallicity known for any Milky Way
star in late October 2002, HE 0107 - 5420 appears to be even older than the
ancient stars found in the galaxy's globular
clusters such as 47 Tucana, at left.
Explanation: A deep optical image (left) of 47 Tucanae shows an
ancient globular
star cluster so dense and crowded that individual
stars can not be distinguished in its closely packed core.
A halo field
star, HE 0107 - 5240 appears to be even older than the
ancient stars found in globular
clusters.
The sharp «eye» of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young
star clusters,
ancient swarms of globular
star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual
stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiant (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)-RRB-
The sharp «eye» of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young
star clusters,
ancient swarms of globular
star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual
stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiant
The most
ancient exoplanet detected so far (PSR B1620 - 26 b) has had a rather unusual history, first born 12.7 billion years ago outside of a «globular
cluster» of
stars (a comparatively older, compact group of up to a million old
stars, held together by mutual gravitation), it then migrated closer to the
cluster and into a rough astrophysical neighborhood.