These 3 popular skywatching star clusters can be branches of the same family tree

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Three of the most popular destinations for astronomers of all skills are the seven sisters (the Pleiades), the Hyaden and Orion Nebula Cluster (onc), the central “Stern” in Orion’s sword.

Now scientists have discovered that these heavenly bodies may be more common than expected. The star clusters can share a common mechanism of origin, although despite the fact that the three clusters are all different age groups and are at different distances from the earth.

This new research suggests looking at the three star clusters, like looking at three snapshots of the same person in three different phases of their lives, from baby gearshift to age.

The youngest of this open cluster is the ONC at 2.5 million years. It is around 1,350 light years away and full of thousands of young stars, which are embedded in the star cloud they have created, is one of the most active constellating regions on Milky Way.

The Pleiades are 444 light years from the earth and are less densely packed than the onc, but at 100 million years much older. However, the hyadens, which are 151 light years away, have fewer stars that are spread out even thinner and are around 700 million years old.

As diverse as these Star clusters also seem, the new research results of the team indicate that they share a certain type of ancestors.

“Our very precise calculations of the sorts of sorts have now shown that all three star clusters come from the same predecessor,” said Pavel Kroupa, researcher by team member and researcher at the University of Bonn in a statement.

Star cluster on the same cosmic family tree

The team compares the different age and conditions in these three star clusters with the same person with photos that document the phases of their lives. The densely packed onc is the baby, the more the young person is the young person and the hyadens are the older person.

Although the three clusters did not form from the same molecular cloud of poet gas and dust, they can be compared to the same person that is born three times in different parts of the world.

“From this we can learn that open star clusters seem to have a preferred type of star formation,” said Kroupa. “It seems that there is a preferred physical environment in which stars form when they develop in these clouds.”

The question is: How does a cluster like the onc develop into a like pleiaades and then age to a cluster like the hyaden? Kroupa and colleagues, including the team leader Ghasem Safaei from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, answered this question with computer simulations.

Star clusters graciously become old

The simulations of the team showed the forces that work between stars in a cluster. This made it possible for the scientists to model the life cycle of such a collection of stars from a gas-rich, dense children’s shoes through gradual expansion and gradual gas and star loss over the course of 800 million years.

The results achieved by the team reflected the changes in the structure and the composition between the phases that we see from onc, the pleiaades and the hyadens.

“This investigation shows that it is completely plausible that star clusters like the onc follow a development path that transforms it into systems such as Pleies and later hyades,” said Hagein Haghi, member of the studio team and researcher at the University of Bonn.

The results of the team showed that clusters such as the ONC lose up to 85% of their star population and can still stick to coherent structures if they resemble the age of the hyadese while they go through a stage that resembles the pleiaades.

The research of the team also suggests that the fact that these three clusters in the night sky appear close to each other in the night sky, although they are widespread in the cosmos, may be more than just a coincidence. In fact, this positioning could be related to the way star clusters form in terms of our galaxy and develop.

“This research gives us a deeper understanding of how star clusters form and illustrate the sensitive balance between internal dynamics and external forces such as the gravitational suit of the Milky Way,” said team member Akram Hasani Zonoozi from the University of Bonn in the explanation.

Related stories:

-The Hubble world space telescope reveals the richest view of the Andromeda galaxy (picture)

-Hubble telescope spies newborn stars in the famous Orion fog (photo)

-The NASA wants a “super hubble” space-space telescope to search for life in extraterrestrial worlds

In addition to the importance of research for our understanding of Star clusters and their development, the work of the team shows the strength to combine simulations with astronomical observations.

This research was published on Friday (July 18) in the magazine Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.