Star Clusters

[buccaneer]

Why don't star clusters swirl like galaxies? Even with a black hole at center, still no swirl. Why would'nt star clusters be great places for planets being such ancient places, more time to develop. Just a few things i've always wondered. Star clusters are so beautiful, like a spray of diamonds!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Welocme to Space.com! Good question.<br /><br />Star clusters do swirl (or rather the stars orbit the center of mass of the system). They just don't form the beutiful spirals that galaxies do, since they have little gas left to form new stars, and are too small to show such structure.<br /><br />Clusters are actually terrible places for planets, since any planets that did manage to form would be ejcted from it's stellar system by interactions with other nearby stars. The stars are hundreds or thousands of times closer than they are in our neighborhood. Our planetary system would not survive long in such an environment.<br /><br />The sky would be amazing though; instead of a handful of very bright stars that we see, there might be hundreds....so much so that it would never get dark from all the starlight. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[buccaneer]

How do you know that stars in a cluster are orbiting their core, as opposed to emmenating from a starburst area in space? Maybe some odd little planets could exist in star clusters like pulsar planets do. Life here on earth exists in some pretty peculiar improbable places! Thanks for shedding some interesting light.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Well, there is not evidence of the stars radianting from a single point, and there is evidence that the stars are orbiting.<br /><br />Also, since we can see many stellat clusters, and no "starbursts" as you describe, it makes far more sense that they are a long lasting, normal feature. In fact they are reasonable well understood.<br /><br />In addition, for almost all known clutsre, the stars are very old; much older than our sun.<br /><br />So in order for te constituant stars to be together after all that time, they must be graviationally bound, or they would be scatterd across much larger areas.<br /><br />While planets might (and probably do) exist in star clusters, they would not be bound to a single star, but would rather be part of the soup.<br /><br />So a planet might be warmed by a star for a few hundred million years, it then might be between stars (i.e. dead) for hundreds of millions of years before it passed by another star.<br />A very unstable (bad for the evolution of life) environment.<br /><br />Hope that helps <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[buccaneer]

Thanks for straightening me out on a few things. Maybe if star clusters were classified as some sort of old small dwarf irregular galaxies people would understand them a little better. There seems to be more gravitational weirdness going on than is known. I think i'm turning into an old small dwarf myself thinking about it too much! Thanks for helping! Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas

 

[MeteorWayne]

Thanx for the clarification.<br /><br />I suspect from his description he was talking about gloular clusters, but that may have just been my assumption. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>