What are star clusters?

Star clusters are groups of stars that have the same origin and are bound together by a gravitational bond for some time. This helps astronomers to study about stellar evolution and ages. There are two types of star clusters, open clusters and globular clusters.

Open clusters have anywhere from a dozen to many hundreds of stars. They consist of the younger stars in the galaxy with just few exceptions. They are spread across 30 light years. They are well separated from each other even at the center. Globular clusters are clusters consisting of thousands of stars to hundreds of thousands of stars. They are usually spherical and cover about 10 to 30 light years of area. These stars are usually yellow and red and are just few hundred million younger that the universe. They are useful for astronomers as they give a structure to study the stellar age and evolution. This also allows the astronomers to study the age of the universe which they have concluded to be about 13 billion years.

You can already guess from the name itself what a star cluster is. This is a group of stars that can be found in various parts of the galaxy. The stars are usually bound by gravity and they have usually clustered for years already. There are two types of star clusters that are available.

The first-star cluster type is called galactic cluster and the second type is called the globular cluster. The galactic cluster is usually made up of hundreds of stars that are normally still young while the Globular cluster is composed of thousands of stars that have been around for a thousand years or so. Star clusters are very beautiful to see especially with the aid of a telescope.