... September 21, 1999 . The Quintuplet Star Cluster . ... Explanation: Bright clusters of stars form and disperse near the center of our Galaxy . ... The Quintuplet Cluster is located within 100 light-years of the Galactic center , and is home to the brightest star yet cataloged in our Galaxy: the Pistol Star . ... The young Quintuplet Cluster is one of the most massive open clusters yet discovered, but still much less massive than the ancient globular clusters that orbit in the distant halo. ...

... Press Release Images . Individual Images . ... The right-hand image shows Hubble's close-up view of the galaxy's core, taken in December 1995 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The bluish-purple clumps that form the ring are the clusters of infant stars. Two dark, wispy lanes of dust and a pair of blue spiral arms are just outside the star-forming ring. ... The gas is trapped inside the ring through the stars' gravitational attraction. ... Amazing Space | ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Comets and Asteroids . ... Image credit:ESO/J.Emerson/VISTA. ... However others are less pessimistic and it has even been claimed that the mysterious ?Wow! signal? received in 1977 originated from the direction M55.б  Sadly, this still unexplained pulse of radio energy originated from a location rather to the northwest of M55 so I doubt if the source was this cluster (if indeed the signal was genuinely of extraterrestrial origin). ... Mysterious Wow! ...

Stellar Clusters are very useful laboratories for empirically studying stellar evolution. ... All cluster stars are at the same distance . All cluster stars have the same physical age . ... CM diagram Young Cluster In this case we see the Main Sequence fully represented. The blue dots represent massive stars with short main sequence lifetimes. ... Thus, identifying the most massive star which is still on the main sequence is an effective means of determining the age of a stellar cluster. ...

... Commission 37: Star Clusters and Associations . Home Page . Commission 37 of the International Astronomical Union deals with all aspects of Globular Cluster, Open Cluster, and Stellar Associations research. With Commission 33 it forms Division VII of the IAU. Commission Structure . ... IAU Home Page . Open Clusters Database (maintained by J.-C. Mermilliod ) . Catalogue of Milky Way Globular Cluster Parameters (maintained by W. E. Harris ) . ...

... The Quintuplet Star Cluster . ... Bright clusters of stars form and disperse near the center of our Galaxy. ... The Quintuplet Cluster is located within 100 light-years of the Galactic center, and is home to the brightest star yet cataloged in our Galaxy: the Pistol Star. ... Visible to the unaided eye as a fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion, this image taken with the Big Throughput Camera shows the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. ...

Why areNuclear Star Clusters interesting? 1) Many -- if not all ­ nuclear star clusters appear to be young, or at least have a young population of stars. ... 3) If nuclear clusters indeed form in the galaxy center, their impact on the dynamics of stars and gas in the central region of the host galaxy needs to be understood, because it can potentially influence the galaxy morphology. For example, it has been suggested that nuclear clusters can destroy stellar bars and thus form galaxy bulges. ...

... ESO, the European Southern Observatory . ... Galaxy Clusters . ... Star Clusters . ... Stars@ESO . ... View shopping cart . ... This wide-field view of the sky around the cluster NGC 3532 was created from photographic material forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The cluster itself is at the centre of the picture and the bright star to its lower left is x Carinae тАФ a very brilliant yellow hypergiant star that is about five times further from Earth than the cluster itself. ... NGC 3532 . ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... The next step up are true clusters, called open clusters . Open clusters (sometimes misleadingly called "galactic clusters") are groups of stars ranging in size from a few dozen stars up to tens of thousands. ... The youngest is about 1 or 2 million years old, while the oldest is about 6 or 7 billion years, making it just older than our own solar system. ... So by looking at the stars in the cluster we can tell pretty well how old they are. ...

home publications > mercury . ... Big Clusters, Tiny Galaxies . ... Astronomers struggle to understand why giant star clusters form in the tiniest of galaxies . ... These clusters are probably young versions of globular clusters, but they are commonly called super star clusters. Seven dwarf galaxies within 16 million light-years have formed super star clusters, with one of these galaxies, NGC 1569, possessing two young clusters. ... Super star clusters have a lot to tell us about star formation. ...

Note that different students may see different quiz forms.) ... Giant stars are rare because . a) they do not form as often as main sequence stars. b) giant stars are unstable. c) the giant stage is very short compared to the main sequence stage. d) elements heavier than helium are relatively rare. In a color-magnitude diagram of a star cluster, the blue end of the main sequence is useful for defining the age of the cluster because . ... 2) Some idea. 3) Good idea. ...

... Observatory . ... The Laboratory of Astrometry . Dept. for Physics of Stars&Galaxies . ... Astronomical Calendar . ... UkrVO . ... The purpose of research: Creating a stellar catalog to study the structure and kinematics of star systems, including open star clusters and stars with large proper motions; the enhancement ICRF / Hipparcos system to stars dawn to 17 m (V); Search of binary systems of brown dwarfs and determination of their parameters; astrometry of minor bodies of the Solar System. ...