This picture from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope exhibits the globular star cluster NGC 2419. Globular clusters are each stunning and interesting. They are spherical teams of stars that orbit the middle of a galaxy, and within the case of NGC 2419, that galaxy is our personal Milky Way. NGC 2419 is round 300,000 light-years from the solar system, within the constellation Lynx.
The stars populating globular clusters are very comparable as a result of they shaped at roughly the identical time. Astronomers can decide a star’s relative age by its chemical make-up, a property referred to as its metallicity.
Because stars in a globular cluster all shaped at across the identical time, they have a tendency to show comparable properties. Astronomers believed this similarity included their stellar helium content material. They thought that each one stars in a globular cluster would comprise comparable quantities of helium.
However, Hubble’s observations of NGC 2419 revealed that this isn’t all the time the case. This globular cluster holds two separate populations of crimson big stars, and one is unusually helium wealthy. NGC 2419’s stars maintain different parts that fluctuate too. In specific, their nitrogen content material varies.
To make issues much more attention-grabbing, the helium-rich stars are predominantly within the middle of the globular cluster and are rotating. Hubble’s observations raised questions concerning the formation of globular clusters; did these two drastically completely different teams of stars type collectively? Or did this globular cluster come into being by a distinct route fully?
Provided by
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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