High-Temperature Stars Revealed in the Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
High-Temperature Stars Revealed in the
Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
Why In News
Scientists have
detected strange hot stars in the globular cluster, Omega Centauri, using the
Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) image on AstroSat.
Key Points
A team of astronomers
led by scientists at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and their
international collaborators decided to study the most massive globular cluster
system in our galaxy, Omega Centauri. They have detected strange hot stars in
the cluster using the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) image on AstroSat.
They have found that
these hot stars emitted much less ultraviolet radiation than expected from
theoretical models and in comparison, with stars of another globular cluster,
M13 has similar overall properties.
A class of
high-temperature stars was detected in the globular cluster Omega Centauri, the
largest-known globular cluster in the Milky Way. Globular clusters are
spherical aggregates of several thousand to millions of stars bound by gravity.
These systems are thought to be formed early on in the Universe and can serve
as perfect astrophysical laboratories for astronomers to understand how stars
evolve through various phases.
Omega Cen is believed
to be the remnant of a small galaxy gravitationally disrupted long ago by the
Milky Way. After exhaustion of the hydrogen fuel in their core, these stars
will eventually swell up to become red giants, having an inert helium core
inside a shell fusing hydrogen.
Stars with larger
envelopes may age and go on to the luminous asymptotic giant phase, shed most
of their envelope, generate copious amounts of Stardust and end up as dead
remnants. However, HB stars with thinner envelopes end up directly as white
dwarfs.