(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona studied data from the catalog of interstellar clouds and drew attention to one unusual feature.
During the study, they found five blue spots, consisting of young blue stars. They are located in the Virgo Cluster.
After studying the available data, scientists came to the conclusion that they managed to discover a new type of star system.
A feature of such clusters is that their stars are completely isolated from their parent galaxies. Scientists are talking about the discovery of a new type of star system – a cluster of gravitationally bound stars that is not a galaxy.
Another feature is that such clusters have been found to contain little atomic hydrogen, which is an important ingredient in the process of star formation.
The absence of much hydrogen raises the question of how the young stars formed in these clusters, especially given their distance from possible host galaxies.
A research team led by Michael Jones, a researcher at the Arizona Steward Observatory, noted the presence of heavy metals in the spots.
This suggests that star systems were formed from gas that escaped from a large galaxy, because metals are formed as a result of many repeated episodes of star formation, which is possible only in a large galaxy says one of the authors of the study, Michael Jones.
Where did the hydrogen go?
There are only two main ways of expelling gas from a galaxy: tidal separation, in which the gravitational pull between galaxies pulls gas away from them, and pressure separation, where hydrogen is forced out by an incoming galaxy.
Astronomers suspect that, over time, the stars in the spots will break up into smaller star clusters and disperse.
By the way, recently the Hubble Space Telescope recorded an unusual merger of branched galaxies in a striking photo.
Structure CGCG 396-2 was formed as a result of the merger of branching galaxies in the constellation of Orion at a distance of about 520 million light-years from us.
The image was taken using the advanced camera ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) aboard the space observatory.
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