What Are Globular Clusters?

The globular star cluster is an astronomical term, named for its spherical shape. Globular star clusters are composed of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of stars. They are spherical in appearance, and the denser the stars are toward the center. The average density of stars in a globular cluster is tens of times higher than the density of stars around the sun, and it is tens of thousands of times near its center. The stars in the same globular cluster have the same evolutionary history, the movement direction and speed are about the same, and they are likely to be formed at the same time. They are the earliest formed stars in the Milky Way, with a history of about 10 billion years.

Spherical star cluster, spherical in appearance, orbiting the galaxy core in orbit,

M22 was the first globular cluster to be discovered.

When a globular cluster approaches a massive object, such as the core of a galaxy,

Scientists find hidden medium-mass black hole in globular cluster

According to the Physics website, all black holes are divided into two types: small, stellar mass black holes, which are several times the mass of the sun; supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions of times the weight of the sun. Astronomers believe that there are also moderate-mass black holes in the universe, weighing 100-10,000 times the weight of the sun, but so far no conclusive evidence of the existence of moderate-mass black holes has been found. Astronomers now claim that the latest discovery of an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), which is 2200 times the mass of the sun, is hidden in the center of the Rhododendron 47 globular cluster.

"We want to discover medium-mass black holes because they are stellar and supermassive," said Bulent Kiziltan, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The missing link between them may be the original seeds, which gradually grow to super-massive black holes similar to the center of the Milky Way. "

The latest research was published in the February 9 issue of Nature. The Rhododendron 47 globular cluster is an ancient globular cluster 13,000 light years away from Earth. It has been 12 billion years old and contains thousands of stars. Form a spherical structure with a diameter of about 120 light years. At the same time, there are more than 20 pulsars, and it is of great significance to study and analyze them. ^[5]