Star Clusters
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NASA
Astronomy Picture of the Day
A Messier Moment for Tempel 2 Explanation: Which of these is not a comet? You guessed it – the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at left in the frame. In fact the globular star cluster is Messier 30, also known as M30, or the 30th entry in astronomer Charles Messier’s catalog of…
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NASA
Planets Beware: NASA Unburies Danger Zones of Star Cluster
Most stars form in collections, called clusters or associations, that include very massive stars. These giant stars send out large amounts of high-energy radiation, which can disrupt relatively fragile disks of dust and gas that are in the process of coalescing to form new planets. A team of astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, in combination with ultraviolet, optical, and infrared data, to show where some…
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