The way they move belies the true ages of the almost 3,000 stars populating one of the richest star clusters known. Astronomers recently discovered the stars all were born in the same generation, solving a long-standing puzzle about how stars evolve.
Do star clusters harbor many generations of stars or just one? Scientists have long searched for an answer and, thanks to the University of Arizona’s MMT telescope, found one in the Wild Duck Cluster, where stars spin at different speeds, disguising their common age.
In a partnership between the UA and the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute, a team of Korean and Belgian astronomers used UA instruments to solve a puzzle about flocks of stars called open clusters.
Astronomers have long believed that many open clusters consist of a single generation of stars because once stars have formed, their radiation blows away nearby material needed to make new stars. But in the Wild Duck Cluster – known by scientists as Messier 11, or M11 – stars of the same brightness appear in different colors, suggesting they are of different ages. Unless scientists had missed important clues about stellar evolution, there had to be another explanation for the spread of colors in this accumulation of about 2,900 stars. ...
The stars in the Wild Duck Cluster, it turns out, are spread out in the color spectrum not because of different ages, but because of different rotational periods. ...
Extended Main Sequence Turn-off Originating from a Broad Range of Stellar Rotational Velocities ~ Beomdu Lim et al
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
The way they move belies the true ages of the almost 3,000 stars populating one of the richest star clusters known. Astronomers recently discovered the stars all were born in the same generation, solving a long-standing puzzle about how stars evolve.
Do star clusters harbor many generations of stars or just one? Scientists have long searched for an answer and, thanks to the University of Arizona’s MMT telescope, found one in the Wild Duck Cluster, where stars spin at different speeds, disguising their common age.
In a partnership between the UA and the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute, a team of Korean and Belgian astronomers used UA instruments to solve a puzzle about flocks of stars called open clusters.
Astronomers have long believed that many open clusters consist of a single generation of stars because once stars have formed, their radiation blows away nearby material needed to make new stars. But in the Wild Duck Cluster – known by scientists as Messier 11, or M11 – stars of the same brightness appear in different colors, suggesting they are of different ages. Unless scientists had missed important clues about stellar evolution, there had to be another explanation for the spread of colors in this accumulation of about 2,900 stars. ...
The stars in the Wild Duck Cluster, it turns out, are spread out in the color spectrum not because of different ages, but because of different rotational periods. ...
Extended Main Sequence Turn-off Originating from a Broad Range of Stellar Rotational Velocities ~ Beomdu Lim et al
Rotational speed is like a fountain of youth to a star: The faster it spins, the better it mixes hydrogen – the star’s fuel – into its core. The more hydrogen the core receives, the longer the star lives, causing it to appear redder than younger siblings.
No, it's the other way round. The better a star mixes hydrogen into its core, the longer it can stay on the main sequence, and the bluer it looks.