When we look to the night sky, the one thing that we can be sure to see is stars. Certainly, there are other objects to be seen - distant galaxies, nearby nebulae, maybe a planet or an asteroid - but even each of these would not be seen were it not for the luminous property of stars.
There are many tens of billions of stars in our galaxy. The entire Universe is believed to house more than 70 thousand million million million stars. These stars come in many colors and sizes, all of which tell us something about the stars themselves - their compositions, their expected lifespans and likely manner of death, even whether or not they might host planets.
Stars also come in a variety of groupings - as individuals, as asterisms and constellations, in denser globular clusters, and in younger open clusters. For many observers, open clusters are the prettiest, appearing as a sprinkling of diamonds against a velvety backdrop of the night sky. But for scientists, open clusters offer specific insight into stellar structure and evolution. Their astronomically close distances also enable more accurate calculations of intergalactic distances.
About 1100 open clusters are known within our galaxy, but scientists estimate that there are probably more than 100,000. What are some of those known clusters, and what can they tell us about our solar system, our galaxy, and the Universe? This Saturday evening, at 935pmEDT / 0135 UTC, we’ll target four open clusters with a SLOOH Mission Alert to answer these questions and to explore what makes each of them so special. And for your listening pleasure, we’ll surround the Alert with ambient space music, beginning at 9pmEDT / 0100 UTC.
