The constellation can contain up to a million young stars (Illustration: Artoday) The constellation was discovered near the Milky Way galaxy, closer than any group discovered so far. Experts: The sunlight in these stars is blue
Tamar Arnon
An international team of astronomers reported at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society held this week, on the discovery of a cluster (concentrated group) of mysterious stars near the Milky Way galaxy, closer than any other cluster discovered so far. The most likely hypothesis is that it is a dwarf galaxy merging with our galaxy. "It's a process where one galaxy swallows another galaxy. It's not a violent process, it happens all the time," explained Prof. Sarah Beck from Tel Aviv University, a member of the research team.
The age of the star clusters is very young: they were formed about 4-5 million years ago, which is considered the youngest compared to the known clusters of the Milky Way. "The discovered clusters are probably very similar to the Globular Clusters for the Milky Way - only younger, and they can contain up to a million young stars," explained Prof. Jean Turner from the University of California, who was a member of the research team.
The star clusters were observed in the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope, which actually consists of 27 different telescopes that are connected together into one telescope. The facility is located in the observatory of the "National Science Foundation" in "Apache Point" in New Mexico in the USA. Clouds of molecular gas and dust obscured the stars' lights, but the researchers were able to observe them under infrared and radio radiation. "These are gas clouds heated by strong ultraviolet radiation that form young star clusters," explained Chao Wei Tsai, head of the research team. "They are relatively young, and hidden in the clouds where they form. Although we cannot observe the clusters directly, we can detect the infrared radiation emissions and the radio waves from the gas clouds around them."
Advertisement The study, submitted for publication in the "Astrophysical Journal", shows that "the strange process of creating large cluster stars, which in our galaxy ended 10 billion years ago, continues to exist in galaxies so close to us", Beck explained. According to her, the research also deals with the fascinating question of "how stars are born": "In our galaxy, each star is born separately, but there are galaxies where a million stars are born together in one very dense and compressed cluster." "The mysterious question is why our Milky Way does not give birth to new star clusters and these galaxies do. We have no idea," explained her colleague Jean Turner.
The density of the stars in the cluster is a million times higher than that of the Sun, and the emitted radiation is a billion times stronger than that of the Sun. "Life on a planet orbiting a star in such a cluster would be very different," Beck explained. "The light will come from all directions, and there will be no night or darkness in it. The sunlight will be blue - it will be a very strange place to live in."
