The Milky Way and Beyond (23 page)

The two globular clusters of highest absolute luminosity are in the Southern Hemisphere in the constellations Centaurus and Tucana. Omega Centauri, with an (integrated) absolute visual magnitude of −10.2, is the richest cluster in variables, with nearly 300 known in the early 21st century. From this large group, three types of RR Lyrae stars were first distinguished in 1902. Omega Centauri is relatively nearby, at a distance of 16,000 light-years, and it lacks a sharp nucleus. The cluster designated 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), with an absolute visual magnitude of −9.3 at a similar distance of 13,500 light-years, has a different appearance with strong central concentration. It is located near the Small Magellanic Cloud but is not connected with it. For an observer situated at the centre of this great cluster, the sky would have the brightness of twilight on the Earth because of the light of the thousands of stars nearby. In the Northern Hemisphere, M13 in the constellation Hercules is the easiest to see and is the best known. At a distance of 22,000 light-years, it has been thoroughly investigated and is relatively poor in variables. M3 in Canes Venatici, 32,000 light-years away, is the cluster second richest in variables, with well more than 200 known. Investigation of these variables resulted in the placement of the RR Lyrae stars in a special region of the colour-magnitude diagram.

The discovery of stellar associations depended on knowledge of the characteristics and motions of individual stars scattered over a substantial area. In the 1920s it was noticed that young, hot blue stars (spectral types O and B) apparently congregated together. In 1949 Victor A. Ambartsumian, a Soviet astronomer,
suggested that these stars are members of physical groupings of stars with a common origin and named them O associations (or OB associations, as they are often designated today). He also applied the term T associations to groups of dwarf, irregular T Tauri variable stars, which were first noted at Mount Wilson Observatory by Alfred Joy.

The chief distinguishing feature of the members of a stellar association is that the large majority of constituent stars have similar physical characteristics. An OB association consists of many hot, blue giant stars, spectral classes O and B, and a relatively small number of other objects. A T association consists of cooler dwarf stars, many of which exhibit irregular variations in brightness. The stars clearly must be relatively close to each other in space, though in some cases they might be widely dispersed in the sky and are less closely placed than in the open clusters.

The existence of an OB association is usually established through a study of the space distribution of early O- and B-type stars. It appears as a concentration of points in a three-dimensional plot of galactic longitude and latitude and distance. More than 70 have been cataloged and are designated by constellation abbreviation and number (e.g., Per OB 1 in the constellation Perseus). In terms of dimensions, they are larger than open clusters, ranging from 100 to 700 light-years in diameter, and usually contain one or more open clusters as nuclei. They frequently contain a special type of multiple star, the Trapezium (named for its prototype in Orion), as well as supergiants, binaries, gaseous nebulae, and globules. Associations are relatively homogeneous in age. The best distance determinations are from spectroscopic parallaxes of individual stars—i.e., estimates of their absolute magnitudes made from studies of their spectra. Most of those known are closer than 10,000 light-years, with the nearest association, straddling the boundary between Centaurus and Crux, at 385 light-years.

Associations appear to be almost spherical, though rapid elongation would be expected from the shearing effect of differential galactic rotation. Expansion, which is on the order of 10 km/sec (6 miles/sec), may well mask the tendency to elongate, and this is confirmed in some. Tidal forces break up an association in less than 10 million years through differences in the attraction by an outside body on members in different parts of the association.

A good example of an OB association is Per OB 1 at a distance of some 7,500 light-years, which spreads out from the double cluster
h
and
χ
Persei. A large group of 20 supergiant stars of spectral type M belongs to Per OB 1. Associations with red supergiants may be in a relatively advanced evolutionary stage, almost ready to disintegrate.

The T associations (short for T Tauri associations) are formed by groups of T Tauri stars associated with the clouds of interstellar matter (nebulae) in which
they occur. About three dozen are recognized. A T Tauri star is characterized by irregular variations of light, low luminosity, and hydrogen line (H-alpha) emission. It is a newly formed star of intermediate mass that is still in the process of contraction from diffuse matter. The small motions of T Tauri stars relative to a given nebula indicate that they are not field stars passing through the nebula. They are found in greatest numbers in regions with bright O- and B-type stars.

T associations occur only in or near regions of galactic nebulosity, either bright or dark, and only in obscured regions showing the presence of dust. Besides T Tauri stars, they include related variables, nonvariable stars, and Herbig-Haro objects—small nebulosities 10,000 astronomical units in diameter, each containing several starlike condensations in configurations similar to the Trapezium, Theta Orionis, in the sword of Orion. These objects are considered to be star groups at the very beginning of life.

The constellation of Cygnus has five T associations, and Orion and Taurus have four each. The richest is Ori T2, with more than 400 members; it has a diameter of 50 by 90 light-years and lies at a distance of 1,300 light-years around the variable star T Ori.

Seen from intergalactic space, the Milky Way Galaxy would appear as a giant luminous pinwheel, with more than 150 globular clusters dotted around it. The richest parts of the spiral arms of the pinwheel would be marked by dozens of open clusters. If this panorama could be seen as a time-lapse movie, the great globular clusters would wheel around the galactic centre in elliptical orbits with periods of hundreds of millions of years. The open clusters and stellar associations would be seen to form out of knots of diffuse matter in the spiral arms, gradually disperse, run through their life cycle, and fade away, while the Sun pursued its course around the galactic centre for billions of years.

Young open clusters and associations, occupying the same region of space as clouds of ionized hydrogen (gaseous nebulae), help to define the spiral arms. A concentration of clusters in the bright inner portion of the Milky Way between galactic longitudes 283° and 28° indicates an inner arm in Sagittarius. Similarly, the two spiral arms of Orion and Perseus are defined between 103° and 213°, with a bifurcation of the Orion arm. Associations show the existence of spiral structure in the Sun's vicinity. Older clusters, whose main sequence does not reach to the blue stars, show no correlation with spiral arms because in the intervening years their motions have carried them far from their place of birth.

All the O- and B-type stars in the Galaxy might have originated in OB associations. The great majority, if not all, of the O-type stars were formed and still exist in clusters and associations. Though
only 10 percent of the total number of B-type stars are now in OB associations or clusters, it is likely that all formed in them. At the other (fainter) end of the range of stellar luminosities, the number of dwarf variable stars in the nearby T associations is estimated at 12,000. These associations are apparently the main source of low-luminosity stars in the neighbourhood of the Sun.

While large numbers of associations have formed and dispersed and provided a population of stars for the spiral arms, the globular clusters have survived relatively unchanged except for the evolutionary differences that time brings. They are too massive to be disrupted by the tidal forces of the Galaxy, though their limiting dimensions are set by these forces when they most closely approach the galactic centre. Impressive as they are individually, their total mass of 10 million suns is small compared with the mass of the Galaxy as a whole—only about 1/10,000. Their substance is that of the Galaxy in a very early stage. The Galaxy probably collapsed from a gaseous cloud composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. About 14 billion years ago, before the last stages of the collapse, matter forming the globular clusters may have separated from the rest. The fact that metal-rich clusters are near the galactic nucleus while metal-poor clusters are in the halo or outer fringes may indicate a nonuniform distribution of elements throughout the primordial mass. However, there is evidence that galaxies are given to cannibalism, in which smaller galaxies merge with larger ones that do not necessarily have the same properties. This has complicated the picture of chemical evolution. The case of the globular cluster Omega Centauri suggests this merging also may happen on smaller scales. Its stars are unusual, perhaps unique, in having a variety of chemical compositions, as though they came from more than one earlier cluster.

In a study of star clusters, a time panorama unfolds—from the oldest objects existing in the Galaxy, the globular clusters, through clusters in existence only half as long, to extremely young open clusters and associations that have come into being since humans first trod the Earth.

The study of clusters in external galaxies began in 1847, when Sir John Herschel at the Cape Observatory (in what is now South Africa) published lists of such objects in the nearest galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. During the 20th century the identification of clusters was extended to more remote galaxies by the use of large reflectors and other more specialized instruments, including Schmidt telescopes.

Clusters have been discovered and studied in many external galaxies, particularly members of the Local Group (a group of about 40 stellar systems to which the Galaxy belongs). At their great distances classification is difficult, but it has
been accomplished from studies of the colours of the light from an entire cluster (integrated colours) or, for relatively few, from colour-magnitude diagrams.

Clusters have been found by the hundreds in some of the nearest galaxies. At the distance of the Magellanic Clouds, a cluster like the Pleiades would appear as a faint 15th magnitude object, subtending 15 seconds of arc instead of several degrees. Nevertheless, it is estimated that the Small Magellanic Cloud, at a distance of 200,000 light-years, contains about 2,000 open clusters. In the Large Magellanic Cloud, at a distance of 163,000 light-years, over 1,200 of an estimated 4,200 have been cataloged. Most of them are young blue-giant open clusters such as NGC 330 and NGC 1866. The open clusters contain some Cepheid variables and in chemical composition are similar to, but not exactly the same as, those of the Galaxy. The globular clusters fall into two distinct groups. Those of the first group, the red, have a large metal deficiency similar to the globular clusters in the Galaxy, and some are known to contain RR Lyrae variables. The globular clusters of the second group are large and circular in outline, with colours much bluer than normal galactic globular clusters and with ages of about one million to one billion years. They are similar to the open clusters of the Magellanic Clouds but are very populous. The observed differences between clusters in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds result from small differences in helium or heavy-element abundances. There are at least 122 associations with a mean diameter of 250 light-years, somewhat richer and larger than in the Galaxy. Sixteen of the associations contain coexistent clusters. Also, 15 star clouds (aggregations of many thousands of stars dispersed over hundreds or even thousands of light-years) are recognized.

In the great Andromeda spiral galaxy (M31) some 2.2 million light-years away, about 500 globular clusters are known. Colour studies of some of these clusters reveal that they have a higher metal content than globular clusters of the Galaxy. Nearly 200 OB associations are known, with distances up to 80,000 light-years from the nucleus. The diameters of their dense cores are comparable to those of galactic associations. NGC 206 (OB 78) is the richest star cloud in M31, having a total mass of 200,000 suns and bearing a strong resemblance to the double cluster in Perseus. Some globular clusters have been found around the dwarf elliptical companions to M31, NGC 185, and NGC 205.

M33 in the constellation Triangulum—a spiral galaxy with thick, loose arms (an Sc system in the Hubble classification scheme)—has about 300 known clusters, not many of which have globular characteristics. Of the six dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Local Group, only the one in the constellation Fornax has clusters. Its five globular clusters are similar to the bluest globular clusters of the Galaxy. No clusters have been discovered in the irregular galaxies NGC 6822 and IC 1613.

Beyond the Local Group, at a distance of 45 million light-years, the giant
elliptical galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster of galaxies is surrounded by an estimated 13,000 globular star clusters. Inspection of other elliptical galaxies in Virgo shows that they too have globular clusters whose apparent magnitudes are similar to those in M87, though their stellar population is substantially smaller. It appears that the mean absolute magnitudes of globular clusters are constant and independent of the absolute luminosity of the parent galaxy.

The total number of clusters now known in external galaxies far exceeds the number known in the Milky Way system.

Of the billions of stars and star clusters in the universe, some have stood out among the rest for a variety of reasons. In the section that follows, greater detail is presented on many of those that have distinguished themselves as distinctive objects in the sky or in the history of astronomy itself.