(ORDO NEWS) — Analyzing data from ESA‘s Gaia satellite, astronomers have discovered two new young open clusters, Casado 82 and Casado-Hendy 1.
Open clusters (PCs) are groups of gravitationally bound stars that were formed from a single giant molecular cloud.
So far, more than 1,000 PCs have been discovered in the Milky Way, and scientists are still looking for more. A detailed study of open clusters is important for studying the formation and evolution of our galaxy.
NGC 6871 is a young, large and rich PC with some substructure and at least two cores. It is located at a distance of about 5900 light years.
Previous observations of this cluster have shown it to be part of a star-forming complex containing the young star clusters Teutsch 8, FSR 198, and Biurakan 2.
A team of astronomers led by Juan Casado of the Autonomous University of Barcelona investigated the cluster by analyzing the Gaia 3 (DR3) data release. As part of this study, they discovered two new MS.
The discovered clusters Casado 82 and Casado-Hendy 1 are located about 6200 light-years away. Each of them contains 39 stars.
The radii of Casado 82 and Casado-Hendy 1 were calculated as 9 and 8.1 arc minutes, respectively.
The study found Casado 82 to be approximately 6.6 million years old, while Casado-Hendy 1 is approximately 300,000 years younger.
The total mass of Casado 82 is estimated at 85 solar masses, which is about eight solar masses less than that of Casado-Hendy 1.
As for the metal content, it is very similar for these clusters – at levels of 0.015 and 0.017 for Casado 82 and Casado-Hendy 1 respectively.
These values were noted to be close to those of the Sun and also suggest a similar composition of the two clusters.
Summing up, the authors of the article noted that the discovery of Casado 82 and Casado-Hendy 1 suggests that even more new PCs can be found in the near future using Gaia data analysis.
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