Star cluster, either of two general types of stellar assemblages held together by the mutual gravitational attraction of its members, which are physically related through common origin. The two types are open (formerly called galactic) clusters and globular clusters.
General description and classification
Open clusters contain from a dozen to many hundreds of stars, usually in an unsymmetrical arrangement. By contrast, globular clusters are old systems containing thousands to hundreds of thousands of stars closely packed in a symmetrical, roughly spherical form. In addition, groups called associations, made up of a few dozen to hundreds of stars of similar type and common origin whose density in space is less than that of the surrounding field, are also recognized.
Four open clusters have been known from earliest times: the Pleiades and Hyades in the constellation Taurus, Praesepe (the Beehive) in the constellation Cancer, and Coma Berenices. The Pleiades was so important to some early peoples that its rising at sunset determined the start of their year. The appearance of the Coma Berenices cluster to the naked eye led to the naming of its constellation for the hair of Berenice, wife of Ptolemy Euergetes of Egypt (3rd century bce); it is the only constellation named after a historical figure.
Though several globular clusters, such as Omega Centauri and Messier 13 in the constellation Hercules, are visible to the unaided eye as hazy patches of light, attention was paid to them only after the invention of the telescope. The first record of a globular cluster, in the constellation Sagittarius, dates to 1665 (it was later named Messier 22); the next, Omega Centauri, was recorded in 1677 by the English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley.
Investigations of globular and open clusters greatly aided the understanding of the Milky Way Galaxy. In 1917, from a study of the distances and distributions of globular clusters, the American astronomer Harlow Shapley, then of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, determined that its galactic centre lies in the Sagittarius region. In 1930, from measurements of angular sizes and distribution of open clusters, Robert J. Trumpler of Lick Observatory in California, showed that light is absorbed as it travels through many parts of space.
The discovery of stellar associations depended on knowledge of the characteristics and motions of individual stars scattered over a substantial area. In the 1920s it was noticed that young, hot blue stars (spectral types O and B) apparently congregated together. In 1949 Victor A. Ambartsumian, a Soviet astronomer, suggested that these stars are members of physical groupings of stars with a common origin and named them O associations (or OB associations, as they are often designated today). He also applied the term T associations to groups of dwarf, irregular T Tauri variable stars, which were first noted at Mount Wilson Observatory by Alfred Joy.
The study of clusters in external galaxies began in 1847, when Sir John Herschel at the Cape Observatory (in what is now South Africa) published lists of such objects in the nearest galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. During the 20th century the identification of clusters was extended to more remote galaxies by the use of large reflectors and other more specialized instruments, including Schmidt telescopes.
More than 150 globular clusters were known in the Milky Way Galaxy by the early years of the 21st century. Most are widely scattered in galactic latitude, but about a third of them are concentrated around the galactic centre, as satellite systems in the rich Sagittarius-Scorpius star fields. Individual cluster masses include up to one million suns, and their linear diameters can be several hundred light-years; their apparent diameters range from one degree for Omega Centauri down to knots of one minute of arc. In a cluster such as M3, 90 percent of the light is contained within a diameter of 100 light-years, but star counts and the study of RR Lyrae member stars (whose intrinsic brightness varies regularly within well-known limits) include a larger one of 325 light-years. The clusters differ markedly in the degree to which stars are concentrated at their centres. Most of them appear circular and are probably spherical, but a few (e.g., Omega Centauri) are noticeably elliptical. The most elliptical cluster is M19, its major axis being about double its minor axis.
Globular clusters are composed of Population II objects (i.e., old stars). The brightest stars are the red giants, bright red stars with an absolute magnitude of −2, about 600 times the Sun’s brightness or luminosity. In relatively few globular clusters have stars as intrinsically faint as the Sun been measured, and in no such clusters have the faintest stars yet been recorded. The luminosity function for M3 shows that 90 percent of the visual light comes from stars at least twice as bright as the Sun, but more than 90 percent of the cluster mass is made up of fainter stars. The density near the centres of globular clusters is roughly two stars per cubic light-year, compared with one star per 300 cubic light-years in the solar neighbourhood. Studies of globular clusters have shown a difference in spectral properties from stars in the solar neighbourhood—a difference that proved to be due to a deficiency of metals in the clusters, which have been classified on the basis of increasing metal abundance. Globular cluster stars are between 2 and 300 times poorer in metals than stars like the Sun, with the metal abundance being higher for clusters near the galactic centre than for those in the halo (the outermost reaches of the Galaxy extending far above and below its plane). The amounts of other elements, such as helium, may also differ from cluster to cluster. The hydrogen in cluster stars is thought to amount to 70–75 percent by mass, helium 25–30 percent, and the heavier elements 0.01–0.1 percent. Radio astronomical studies have set a low upper limit on the amount of neutral hydrogen in globular clusters. Dark lanes of nebulous matter are puzzling features in some of these clusters. Though it is difficult to explain the presence of distinct, separate masses of unformed matter in old systems, the nebulosity cannot be foreground material between the cluster and the observer.
About 2,000 variable stars are known in the 100 or more globular clusters that have been examined. Of these, perhaps 90 percent are members of the class called RR Lyrae variables. Other variables that occur in globular clusters are Population II Cepheids, RV Tauri, and U Geminorum stars, as well as Mira stars, eclipsing binaries, and novas.
The colour of a star, as previously noted, has been found generally to correspond to its surface temperature, and in a somewhat similar way the type of spectrum shown by a star depends on the degree of excitation of the light-radiating atoms in it and therefore also on the temperature. All stars in a given globular cluster are, within a very small percentage of the total distance, at equal distances from Earth so that the effect of distance on brightness is common to all. Colour-magnitude and spectrum-magnitude diagrams can thus be plotted for the stars of a cluster, and the position of the stars in the array, except for a factor that is the same for all stars, will be independent of distance.
In globular clusters all such arrays show a major grouping of stars along the lower main sequence, with a giant branch containing more-luminous stars curving from there upward to the red and with a horizontal branch starting about halfway up the giant branch and extending toward the blue.
This basic picture was explained as owing to differences in the courses of evolutionary change that stars with similar compositions but different masses would follow after long intervals of time. The absolute magnitude at which the brighter main-sequence stars leave the main sequence (the turnoff point, or “knee”) is a measure of the age of the cluster, assuming that most of the stars formed at the same time. Globular clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy prove to be nearly as old as the universe, averaging perhaps 14 billion years in age and ranging between approximately 12 billion and 16 billion years, although these figures continue to be revised. RR Lyrae variables, when present, lie in a special region of the colour-magnitude diagram called the RR Lyrae gap, near the blue end of the horizontal branch in the diagram.
Two features of globular cluster colour-magnitude diagrams remain enigmatic. The first is the so-called “blue straggler” problem. Blue stragglers are stars located near the lower main sequence, although their temperature and mass indicate that they already should have evolved off the main sequence, like the great majority of other such stars in the cluster. A possible explanation is that a blue straggler is the coalescence of two lower-mass stars in a “born-again” scenario that turned them into a single, more-massive, and seemingly younger star farther up the main sequence, although this does not fit all cases.
The other enigma is referred to as the “second parameter” problem. Apart from the obvious effect of age, the shape and extent of the various sequences in a globular cluster’s colour-magnitude diagram are governed by the abundance of metals in the chemical makeup of the cluster’s members. This is the “first parameter.” Nevertheless, there are cases in which two clusters, seemingly almost identical in age and metal abundance, show horizontal branches that are quite different: one may be short and stubby, and the other may extend far toward the blue. There is thus evidently another, as-yet-unidentified parameter involved. Stellar rotation has been mooted as a possible second parameter, but that now seems unlikely.
Integrated magnitudes (measurements of the total brightness of the cluster), cluster diameters, and the mean magnitude of the 25 brightest stars made possible the first distance determinations on the basis of the assumption that the apparent differences were due entirely to distance. However, the two best methods of determining a globular cluster’s distance are comparing the location of the main sequence on the colour-magnitude diagram with that of stars close to the globular cluster in the sky and using the apparent magnitudes of the globular cluster’s RR Lyrae variables. The correction factor for interstellar reddening, which is caused by the presence of intervening matter that absorbs and reddens stellar light, is substantial for many globular clusters but small for those in high galactic latitudes, away from the plane of the Milky Way. Distances range from about 7,200 light-years for M4 to an intergalactic distance of 400,000 light-years for the cluster called AM-1.
The radial velocities (the speeds at which objects approach or recede from an observer, taken as positive when the distance is increasing) measured by the Doppler effect have been determined from integrated spectra for more than 140 globular clusters. The largest negative velocity is 411 km/sec (kilometres per second) for NGC 6934, while the largest positive velocity is 494 km/sec for NGC 3201. These velocities suggest that the globular clusters are moving around the galactic centre in highly elliptical orbits. The globular cluster system as a whole has a rotational velocity of about 180 km/sec relative to the Sun, or 30 km/sec on an absolute basis. For some clusters, motions of the individual stars around the massive centre have actually been observed and measured. Though proper motions of the clusters are very small, those for individual stars provide a useful criterion for cluster membership.
The two globular clusters of highest absolute luminosity are in the Southern Hemisphere in the constellations Centaurus and Tucana. Omega Centauri, with an (integrated) absolute visual magnitude of −10.26, is the richest cluster in variables, with nearly 200 known in the early 21st century. From this large group, three types of RR Lyrae stars were first distinguished in 1902. Omega Centauri is relatively nearby, at a distance of 17,000 light-years, and it lacks a sharp nucleus. The cluster designated 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), with an absolute visual magnitude of −9.42 at a similar distance of 14,700 light-years, has a different appearance with strong central concentration. It is located near the Small Magellanic Cloud but is not connected with it. For an observer situated at the centre of this great cluster, the sky would have the brightness of twilight on Earth because of the light of the thousands of stars nearby. In the Northern Hemisphere, M13 in the constellation Hercules is the easiest to see and is the best known. At a distance of 23,000 light-years, it has been thoroughly investigated and is relatively poor in variables. M3 in Canes Venatici, 33,000 light-years away, is the cluster second richest in variables, with well more than 200 known. Investigation of these variables resulted in the placement of the RR Lyrae stars in a special region of the colour-magnitude diagram.
Open clusters are strongly concentrated toward the Milky Way. They form a flattened disklike system 2,000 light-years thick, with a diameter of about 30,000 light-years. The younger clusters serve to trace the spiral arms of the Galaxy, since they are found invariably to lie in them. Very distant clusters are hard to detect against the rich Milky Way background. A classification based on central concentration and richness is used and has been extended to nearly 1,000 open clusters. Probably about half the known open clusters contain fewer than 100 stars, but the richest have 1,000 or more. The largest have apparent diameters of several degrees, the diameter of the Taurus cluster being 400 arc minutes (nearly seven arc degrees) and that of the Perseus cluster being 240 arc minutes.
The linear diameters range from the largest, 75 light-years, down to 5 light-years. Increasingly, it has been found that a large halo of actual cluster members surrounds the more-noticeable core and extends the diameter severalfold. Cluster membership is established through common motion, common distances, and so on. Tidal forces and stellar encounters lead to the disintegration of open clusters over long periods of time as stars “evaporate” from the cluster.
Stars of all spectral classes from O to M (high to low temperatures) are found in open clusters, but the frequency of types varies from one cluster to another, as does concentration near the centre. In some (O or OB clusters), the brightest stars are blue, very hot spectral types O or B. In others, they are whitish yellow, cooler spectral type F. High-luminosity stars are more common than in the solar neighbourhood, and dwarfs are much more scarce. The brightest stars in some open clusters are 150,000 times as bright as the Sun. The luminosity of the brightest stars at the upper end of the main sequence varies in clusters from about −8 to −2 visual magnitude. (Visual magnitude is a magnitude measured through a yellow filter, the term arising because the eye is most sensitive to yellow light.)
Because of the high luminosity of their brightest stars, some open clusters have a total luminosity as bright as that of some globular clusters (absolute magnitude of −8), which contain thousands of times as many stars. In the centre of rich clusters, the stars may be only one light-year apart. The density can be 100 times that of the solar neighbourhood. In some, such as the Pleiades and the Orion clusters, nebulosity is a prominent feature, while others have none. In clusters younger than 25 million years, masses of neutral hydrogen extending over three times the optical diameter of the cluster have been detected with radio telescopes. Many of the OB clusters mentioned above contain globules—relatively small, apparently spherical regions of absorbing matter. The most-numerous variables connected with young open clusters are the T Tauri type (see below) and related stars that occur by the hundreds in some nebulous regions of the sky. Conspicuously absent from open clusters is the type most common in globular clusters, the RR Lyrae stars. Other variables include eclipsing binary stars (both Algol type and contact binaries), flare stars, and spectrum variables, such as Pleione. The last-named star, one of the Pleiades, is known to cast off shells of matter from time to time, perhaps as a result of its high rotational speed (up to 322 km/sec). About two dozen open clusters are known to contain Population I Cepheids, and since the distances of these clusters can be determined accurately (see below), the absolute magnitudes of those Cepheids are well determined. This has been of paramount importance in calibrating the period-luminosity relation for Cepheids, and thus in determining the distance scale of the universe.
The colour- or spectrum-magnitude diagram derived from the individual stars holds vital information. Colour-magnitude diagrams are available for about 200 clusters on the UBV photometric system, in which colour is measured from the amount of light radiated by the stars in the ultraviolet, blue, and visual (yellow) wavelength regions. In young clusters, stars are found along the luminous bright blue branch, whereas in old clusters, beyond a turnoff only a magnitude or two brighter than the Sun, they are red giants and supergiants.
Distances can be determined by many methods—geometric, photometric, and spectroscopic—with corrections for interstellar absorption. For the very nearest clusters, direct (trigonometric) parallaxes may be obtained, and these are inversely proportional to the distance. Distances can be derived from proper motions, apparent magnitudes of the brightest stars, and spectroscopically from individual bright stars. Colour-magnitude diagrams, fitted to a standard plot of the main sequence, provide a common and reliable tool for determining distance. The nearest open cluster is the nucleus of the Ursa Major group at a distance of 65 light-years; the farthest clusters are thousands of light-years away.
Motions, including radial velocities and proper motion, have been measured for thousands of cluster stars. The radial velocities of open cluster stars are much smaller than those of globular clusters, averaging tens of kilometres per second, but their proper motions are larger. Open clusters share in the galactic rotation. Used with galactic-rotation formulas, the radial velocities provide another means of distance determination.
A few clusters are known as moving clusters because the convergence of the proper motions of their individual stars toward a “convergent point” is pronounced. The apparent convergence is caused by perspective: the cluster members are really moving as a swarm in almost parallel directions and with about the same speeds. The Hyades is the most-prominent example of a moving cluster. (The Hyades stars are converging with a velocity of 45 km/sec toward the point in the sky with position coordinates right ascension 94 arc degrees, declination +7.6 arc degrees.) The Ursa Major group, another moving cluster, occupies a volume of space containing the Sun, but the Sun is not a member. The cluster consists of a compact nucleus of 14 stars and an extended stream.
Stellar groups are composed of stars presumed to have been formed together in a batch, but the members are now too widely separated to be recognized as a cluster.
Of all the open clusters, the Pleiades is the best known and perhaps the most thoroughly studied. This cluster, with a diameter of 35 light-years at a distance of 380 light-years, is composed of about 500 stars and is 100 million years old. Near the Pleiades in the sky but not so conspicuous, the Hyades is the second nearest cluster at 150 light-years. Its stars are similar to those in the solar neighbourhood, and it is an older cluster (about 615 million years in age). Measurements of the Hyades long formed a basis for astronomical determinations of distance and age because its thoroughly studied main sequence was used as a standard. The higher-than-usual metal abundance in its stars, however, complicated matters, and it is no longer favoured in this way. Coma Berenices, located 290 light-years away, is an example of a “poor” cluster, containing only about 40 stars. There are some extremely young open clusters. Of these, the one associated with the Orion Nebula, which is some 4 million years old, is the closest, at a distance of 1,400 light-years. A still younger cluster is NGC 6611, some of the stars in which formed only a few hundred thousand years ago. At the other end of the scale, some open clusters have ages approaching those of the globular clusters. M67 in the constellation Cancer is 4.5 billion years old, and NGC 188 in Cepheus is 6.5 billion years of age. The oldest known open cluster, Collinder 261 in the southern constellation of Musca, is 8.9 billion years old.
OB and T associations
The chief distinguishing feature of the members of a stellar association is that the large majority of constituent stars have similar physical characteristics. An OB association consists of many hot blue-giant stars, spectral classes O and B, and a relatively small number of other objects. A T association consists of cooler dwarf stars, many of which exhibit irregular variations in brightness. The stars clearly must be relatively close to each other in space, though in some cases they might be widely dispersed in the sky and are less closely placed than in the open clusters.
The existence of an OB association is usually established through a study of the space distribution of early O- and B-type stars. It appears as a concentration of points in a three-dimensional plot of galactic longitude and latitude and distance. More than 70 have been cataloged and are designated by constellation abbreviation and number (e.g., Per OB 1 in the constellation Perseus). In terms of dimensions, they are larger than open clusters, ranging from 100 to 700 light-years in diameter, and usually contain one or more open clusters as nuclei. They frequently contain a special type of multiple star, the Trapezium (named for its prototype in Orion), as well as supergiants, binaries, gaseous nebulas, and globules. Associations are relatively homogeneous in age. The best distance determinations are from spectroscopic parallaxes of individual stars—i.e., estimates of their absolute magnitudes made from studies of their spectra. Most of those known are closer than 10,000 light-years, with the nearest association, straddling the boundary between Centaurus and Crux, at 385 light-years.
Associations appear to be almost spherical, though rapid elongation would be expected from the shearing effect of differential galactic rotation. Expansion, which is on the order of 10 km/sec, may well mask the tendency to elongate, and this is confirmed in some. Tidal forces break up an association in less than 10 million years through differences in the attraction by an outside body on members in different parts of the association.
A good example of an OB association is Per OB 1, at a distance of some 7,500 light-years, which spreads out from the double cluster h and χ Persei. A large group of 20 supergiant stars of spectral type M belongs to Per OB 1. Associations with red supergiants may be in a relatively advanced evolutionary stage, almost ready to disintegrate.
The T associations (short for T Tauri associations) are formed by groups of T Tauri stars associated with the clouds of interstellar matter (nebulas) in which they occur. About three dozen are recognized. A T Tauri star is characterized by irregular variations of light, low luminosity, and hydrogen line (H-alpha) emission. It is a newly formed star of intermediate mass that is still in the process of contraction from diffuse matter. The small motions of T Tauri stars relative to a given nebula indicate that they are not field stars passing through the nebula. They are found in greatest numbers in regions with bright O- and B-type stars.
T associations occur only in or near regions of galactic nebulosity, either bright or dark, and only in obscured regions showing the presence of dust. Besides T Tauri stars, they include related variables, nonvariable stars, and Herbig-Haro objects—small nebulosities 10,000 astronomical units in diameter, each containing several starlike condensations in configurations similar to the Trapezium, Theta Orionis, in the sword of Orion. These objects are considered to be star groups at the very beginning of life.
The constellation of Cygnus has five T associations, and Orion and Taurus have four each. The richest is Ori T2, with more than 400 members; it has a diameter of 50 by 90 light-years and lies at a distance of 1,300 light-years around the variable star T Ori.