open star cluster – Astronomy Now

Hubble captures a colourful cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud

3 July 2021 Astronomy Now

As engineers work to resolve a computer glitch aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, its images, like this one of NGC 330, are a reminder of the spectacular views the observatory has provided for the past three decades.

Supercomputer simulation reverse engineers star cluster formation

27 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Supercomputer simulations show star clusters, regardless of size, form in the same way, starting with a dense cloud of interstellar gas and shaped over several million years by gravity, turbulence and radiation pressure

Astronomer solves mystery of ‘born again’ stars with Hubble

7 December 2015 Astronomy Now

University of Texas astronomer Natalie Gosnell has used the Hubble Space Telescope to better understand why some stars aren’t evolving as predicted. These so-called “blue stragglers” look hotter and bluer than they should for their advanced age. It’s almost as it they were somehow reinvigorated to look much younger than they really are.

The lives of sibling stars in open cluster IC 4651

19 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Most stars form within clusters and these clusters can be used by astronomers as laboratories to study how stars evolve and die. The cluster captured here by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory is known as IC 4651, and the stars born within it now display a wide variety of characteristics.