Published: 31st Aug, 2020
Scientists at Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) discovered He-enhanced cool bright stars among the metal-rich parts of Omega Centauri globular cluster.
Context
Scientists at Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) discovered He-enhanced cool bright stars among the metal-rich parts of Omega Centauri globular cluster.
About
- Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest of all globular star clusters, is a globe-shaped stellar city, teeming with millions of stars. It is estimated to contain several million stars; several hundred variables have been observed in it.
- Globular clusters are large, symmetrically shaped groupings of stars, fairly evenly distributed around the core of our Milky Way galaxy.
- The globular clusters are stellar systems consisting of millions of stars that are formed from a gaseous cloud.
- Location: It is located in the southern constellation Centaurus.
- Mass: Having a mass of 5 million suns, Omega Centauri is 10 times more massive than a typical globular cluster.
- Diameter: Omega Centauri has a diameter of 230 light-years.
- Magnitude: It has a magnitudeof 3.7 and is visible to the unaided eye as a faint luminous patch. Omega Centauri is about 16,000 light-years from Earth and is thus one of the nearer globular clusters.
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The ‘H’ Element
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Key-findings
- This is the first time He abundance has been found in Omega Centauri and the work has been published in ‘The Astrophysical Journal’.
- The different stars of Omega Centauri are not made of the same metal content which is also an indicator of its age.
- With the anomalous elemental abundances, the formation of these are at times different from normal.
- To be sure, the abundances are made on the back of an assumption that “He is one-tenth of the H-abundance.”
The method
- Scientists studied the spectrum by using a low-resolution spectra which had been obtained from the Optometric Medium Resolution Spectrograph (OMRS) installed with the Vainu Bappu Telescope, Vainu Bappu Observatory, Kavalur, India.
- They identified the mild Helium and Helium enhanced stars.
- Moreover, in order to measure the amount of He that is present in the identified bright/ cool stars of Omega Centauri, the scientists used a high-resolution spectra that has been obtained from the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT).
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