![]() Star clusters are particularly useful to astronomers as they provide a way to study and model stellar evolution and ages. Being much less densely populated than globular clusters, they are much less tightly gravitationally bound, and over time, will become disrupted by the gravity of giant molecular clouds and other clusters. Open clusters also contain only a few hundred members within a region of up to about 30 light-years. They are generally made up of young stars, up to a few tens of millions of years old, with a few rare exceptions that are as old as a few billion years. Unlike the spherically distributed globulars, open clusters are confined to the galactic plane and are almost always found within the spiral arms of galaxies. Open clusters, on the other hand, are very different. They commonly consist of very old Population II stars – which are just a few hundred million years younger than the universe itself – and are mostly yellow and red. Globular clusters are roughly spherical groupings of stars that range from 10,000 to several million stars packed into regions ranging from 10 to 30 light years across. Thereare two basic categories of star clusters: Globular and Open (aka. This is what is known as a Star Cluster, by definition, a group of stars that share a common origin and are gravitationally bound for some length of time. For example, while some stars are single field stars (like our Sun), others form in groups of two (binary) or more, sometimes much more. Still, there is some degree of guesswork and chance when it comes to where stars will be born and what kind of stars they will become. Even though we now understand how they are formed, the sheer magnitude of it is still enough to stir the imagination of even the most schooled and cynical academics. There are few things in astronomy more awe inspiring and spellbinding than the birth of a star.
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