Hubble Uncovers Thousands of Globular Star Clusters in Coma
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2018 4:21 pm
Hubble Uncovers Thousands of Globular Star Clusters Scattered among Galaxies
NASA | GSFC | STScI | HubbleSite | 2018 Nov 29
A Wide-field Map of Intracluster Globular Clusters in Coma ~ Juan P. Madrid et al
NASA | GSFC | STScI | HubbleSite | 2018 Nov 29
Gazing across 300 million light-years into a monstrous city of galaxies, astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to do a comprehensive census of some of its most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters found to date.
The survey ... will allow for astronomers to use the globular cluster field to map the distribution of matter and dark matter in the Coma galaxy cluster, which holds over 1,000 galaxies that are packed together.
Because globular clusters are much smaller than entire galaxies – and much more abundant – they are a much better tracer of how the fabric of space is distorted by the Coma cluster's gravity. In fact, the Coma cluster is one of the first places where observed gravitational anomalies were considered to be indicative of a lot of unseen mass in the universe – later to be called “dark matter.”
Among the earliest homesteaders of the universe, globular star clusters are snow-globe-shaped islands of several hundred thousand ancient stars. They are integral to the birth and growth of a galaxy. About 150 globular clusters zip around our Milky Way galaxy, and, because they contain the oldest known stars in the universe, were present in the early formative years of our galaxy.
Some of the Milky Way's globular clusters are visible to the naked eye as fuzzy-looking "stars." But at the distance of the Coma cluster, its globulars appear as dots of light even to Hubble's super-sharp vision. The survey found the globular clusters scattered in the space between the galaxies. They have been orphaned from their home galaxy due to galaxy near-collisions inside the traffic-jammed cluster. Hubble revealed that some globular clusters line up along bridge-like patterns. This is telltale evidence for interactions between galaxies where they gravitationally tug on each other like pulling taffy. ...
A Wide-field Map of Intracluster Globular Clusters in Coma ~ Juan P. Madrid et al
- Astrophysical Journal 867(2):144 (10 Nov 2018) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aae206