Astronomers have opened new groups scattered in the Milky Way

Scattered star clusters represent groups of stars loosely linked together by gravitational forces

Astronomers, using the Gaia space telescope, have opened three new clusters. Stars scattered in one of the sheaths of the Milky Way and determined its characteristics. All contain at least several hundred stars and have a radius of 15 to 20 light-years.

Scattered star clusters are groups of stars weakly linked to one another by gravitational forces. Similar objects are formed from a giant molecular cloud, because of which the stars that compose them have an almost identical age and chemical composition. This makes the scattered groups of the most important objects in the study of stellar evolution. Today, in the Milky Way, more than 1,100 scattered groups have been discovered, and astronomers continue to search for new ones to improve our understanding of the formation and evolution of our galaxy. , informs Ukr.Media.

A new group of astronomers led by Filipe Ferreira (A. reports the discovery of three new star clusters scattered in one of the spiral arms of our galaxy, which is marked by the Sagittarius-Killa sleeve. They received the names UFMG 1, UFMG 2 and UFMG 3, and were discovered during Gaia Data Release 2 catalog analysis by Gaia Space Telescope.The clusters are located about 4900 light-years from Earth and contain at least several hundred stars of quasi-solar metallicity.The age estimate of clusters is between 0.1 and 1.4 billion years.

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The newly discovered objects are located in the sky near the three known dispersed groups NGC 5999, Majaess 166 and Teutsch 81 in the constellation Norm, UFMG 1, UFMG 2 and UFMG 3 respectively have radius of 20.5, 15.6 and 19.5 light years. In comparison, the NGC 5999 has a radius of about 15 light-years. UFMG 1 and UFMG 2 have denser central portions than UFMG 3, and UFMG 2 can contain star populations with more slow spinning blue stars and more of the same. 39, fast red rotating stars.