The Messier 80 globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius is located about 30,000 light-years from the Sun and contains hundreds of thousands of stars.
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity,
which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar
densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is derived from the Latin globulus—a small sphere. A globular cluster is sometimes known more simply as a globular.
Globular clusters are found in the halo of a galaxy and contain considerably more stars and are much older than the less dense open clusters, which are found in the disk of a galaxy. Globular clusters are fairly common; there are about 150 to 158 currently known globular clusters in the Milky Way, with perhaps 10 to 20 more still undiscovered. Larger galaxies can have more: Andromeda Galaxy, for instance, may have as many as 500. Some giant elliptical galaxies (particularly those at the centers of galaxy clusters), such as M87, have as many as 13,000 globular clusters.
Every galaxy of sufficient mass in the Local Group
has an associated group of globular clusters, and almost every large
galaxy surveyed has been found to possess a system of globular clusters. The Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy and the disputed Canis Major Dwarf galaxy appear to be in the process of donating their associated globular clusters (such as Palomar 12) to the Milky Way. This demonstrates how many of this galaxy's globular clusters might have been acquired in the past.
Although it appears that globular clusters contain some of the first stars to be produced in the galaxy, their origins
and their role in galactic evolution are still unclear. It does appear
clear that globular clusters are significantly different from dwarf elliptical galaxies and were formed as part of the star formation of the parent galaxy rather than as a separate galaxy.
Observation history
| Cluster name | Discovered by | Year |
|---|---|---|
| M22 | Abraham Ihle | 1665 |
| ω Cen | Edmond Halley | 1677 |
| M5 | Gottfried Kirch | 1702 |
| M13 | Edmond Halley | 1714 |
| M71 | Philippe Loys de Chéseaux | 1745 |
| M4 | Philippe Loys de Chéseaux | 1746 |
| M15 | Jean-Dominique Maraldi | 1746 |
| M2 | Jean-Dominique Maraldi | 1746 |
The first known globular cluster, now called M22, was discovered in 1665 by Abraham Ihle, a German amateur astronomer. However, given the small aperture of early telescopes, individual stars within a globular cluster were not resolved until Charles Messier observed M4 in 1764. The first eight globular clusters discovered are shown in the table. Subsequently, Abbé Lacaille would list NGC 104, NGC 4833, M55, M69, and NGC 6397 in his 1751–52 catalogue. The M before a number refers to Charles Messier's catalogue, while NGC is from the New General Catalogue by John Dreyer.
When William Herschel
began his comprehensive survey of the sky using large telescopes in
1782 there were 34 known globular clusters. Herschel discovered another
36 himself and was the first to resolve virtually all of them into
stars. He coined the term "globular cluster" in his Catalogue of a Second Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars published in 1789.
The number of globular clusters discovered continued to increase,
reaching 83 in 1915, 93 in 1930 and 97 by 1947. A total of 152 globular
clusters have now been discovered in the Milky Way galaxy, out of an estimated total of 180 ± 20. These additional, undiscovered globular clusters are believed to be hidden behind the gas and dust of the Milky Way.
Beginning in 1914, Harlow Shapley began a series of studies of globular clusters, published in about 40 scientific papers. He examined the RR Lyrae variables in the clusters (which he assumed were Cepheid variables)
and used their period–luminosity relationship for distance estimates.
Later, it was found that RR Lyrae variables are fainter than Cepheid
variables, which caused Shapley to overestimate the distances of the
clusters.
NGC 7006 is a highly concentrated, Class I globular cluster.
Of the globular clusters within the Milky Way, the majority are found
in a halo around the galactic core, and the large majority are located
in the celestial sky centered on the core. In 1918, this strongly
asymmetrical distribution was used by Shapley to make a determination of
the overall dimensions of the galaxy. By assuming a roughly spherical
distribution of globular clusters around the galaxy's center, he used
the positions of the clusters to estimate the position of the Sun
relative to the galactic center. While his distance estimate was in significant error (although within the same order of magnitude
as the currently accepted value), it did demonstrate that the
dimensions of the galaxy were much greater than had been previously
thought. His error was due to interstellar dust in the Milky Way, which
absorbs and diminishes the amount of light from distant objects, such as
globular clusters, that reaches the Earth, thus making them appear to
be more distant than they are.
Shapley's measurements also indicated that the Sun is relatively
far from the center of the galaxy, also contrary to what had previously
been inferred from the apparently nearly even distribution of ordinary
stars. In reality, most ordinary stars lie within the galaxy's disk and
those stars that lie in the direction of the galactic center and beyond
are thus obscured by gas and dust, whereas globular clusters lie outside
the disk and can be seen at much further distances.
Classification
Shapley was subsequently assisted in his studies of clusters by Henrietta Swope and Helen Battles Sawyer
(later Hogg). In 1927–29, Shapley and Sawyer categorized clusters
according to the degree of concentration each system has toward its
core. The most concentrated clusters were identified as Class I, with
successively diminishing concentrations ranging to Class XII. This
became known as the Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class (it is sometimes given with numbers [Class 1–12] rather than Roman numerals.) In 2015, a new type of globular cluster was proposed on the basis of observational data, the dark globular clusters.
Formation
NGC 2808 contains three distinct generations of stars. NASA image
The formation of globular clusters remains a poorly understood
phenomenon and it remains uncertain whether the stars in a globular
cluster form in a single generation or are spawned across multiple
generations over a period of several hundred million years. In many
globular clusters, most of the stars are at approximately the same stage
in stellar evolution, suggesting that they formed at about the same time.
However, the star formation history varies from cluster to cluster,
with some clusters showing distinct populations of stars. An example of
this is the globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) that exhibit a bimodal population. During their youth, these LMC clusters may have encountered giant molecular clouds that triggered a second round of star formation. This star-forming period is relatively brief, compared to the age of many globular clusters.
It has also been proposed that the reason for this multiplicity in stellar populations could have a dynamical origin. In the Antennae galaxy,
for example, the Hubble Space Telescope has observed clusters of
clusters, regions in the galaxy that span hundreds of parsecs, where
many of the clusters will eventually collide and merge. Many of them
present a significant range in ages, hence possibly metallicities, and their merger could plausibly lead to clusters with a bimodal or even multiple distribution of populations.
Globular star cluster Messier 54.
Observations of globular clusters show that these stellar formations
arise primarily in regions of efficient star formation, and where the
interstellar medium is at a higher density than in normal star-forming
regions. Globular cluster formation is prevalent in starburst regions and in interacting galaxies. Research indicates a correlation between the mass of a central supermassive black holes (SMBH) and the extent of the globular cluster systems of elliptical and lenticular galaxies. The mass of the SMBH in such a galaxy is often close to the combined mass of the galaxy's globular clusters.
No known globular clusters display active star formation, which
is consistent with the view that globular clusters are typically the
oldest objects in the Galaxy, and were among the first collections of
stars to form. Very large regions of star formation known as super star clusters, such as Westerlund 1 in the Milky Way, may be the precursors of globular clusters.
Composition
Djorgovski 1's stars contain hydrogen and helium, but not much else. In astronomical terms, they are described as "metal-poor".
Globular clusters are generally composed of hundreds of thousands of low-metal, old stars. The type of stars found in a globular cluster are similar to those in the bulge of a spiral galaxy but confined to a volume of only a few million cubic parsecs. They are free of gas and dust and it is presumed that all of the gas and dust was long ago turned into stars.
Globular clusters can contain a high density of stars; on average about 0.4 stars per cubic parsec, increasing to 100 or 1000 stars per cubic parsec in the core of the cluster.
The typical distance between stars in a globular cluster is about 1 light year, but at its core, the separation is comparable to the size of the Solar System (100 to 1000 times closer than stars near the Solar System).
Globular clusters are not thought to be favorable locations for
the survival of planetary systems. Planetary orbits are dynamically
unstable within the cores of dense clusters because of the perturbations
of passing stars. A planet orbiting at 1 astronomical unit around a star that is within the core of a dense cluster such as 47 Tucanae would only survive on the order of 108 years. There is a planetary system orbiting a pulsar (PSR B1620−26) that belongs to the globular cluster M4, but these planets likely formed after the event that created the pulsar.
Some globular clusters, like Omega Centauri in the Milky Way and G1 in M31, are extraordinarily massive, with several million solar masses (M☉)
and multiple stellar populations. Both can be regarded as evidence that
supermassive globular clusters are in fact the cores of dwarf galaxies that are consumed by the larger galaxies. About a quarter of the globular cluster population in the Milky Way may have been accreted along with their host dwarf galaxy.
Several globular clusters (like M15) have extremely massive cores which may harbor black holes,
although simulations suggest that a less massive black hole or central
concentration of neutron stars or massive white dwarfs explain
observations equally well.
Metallic content
Messier 53 contains an unusual number of a type of star called blue stragglers.
Globular clusters normally consist of Population II stars, which have a low proportion of elements other than hydrogen and helium when compared to Population I stars such as the Sun. Astronomers refer to these heavier elements as metals and to the proportions of these elements as the metallicity. These elements are produced by stellar nucleosynthesis and then are recycled into the interstellar medium,
where they enter the next generation of stars. Hence the proportion of
metals can be an indication of the age of a star, with older stars
typically having a lower metallicity.
The Dutch astronomer Pieter Oosterhoff noticed that there appear to be two populations of globular clusters, which became known as Oosterhoff groups. The second group has a slightly longer period of RR Lyrae variable stars. Both groups have weak lines of metallic elements. But the lines in the stars of Oosterhoff type I (OoI) cluster are not quite as weak as those in type II (OoII). Hence type I are referred to as "metal-rich" (for example, Terzan 7), while type II are "metal-poor" (for example, ESO 280-SC06).
These two populations have been observed in many galaxies, especially massive elliptical galaxies.
Both groups are nearly as old as the universe itself and are of similar
ages, but differ in their metal abundances. Many scenarios have been
suggested to explain these sub-populations, including violent gas-rich
galaxy mergers, the accretion of dwarf galaxies, and multiple phases of
star formation in a single galaxy. In the Milky Way, the metal-poor clusters are associated with the halo and the metal-rich clusters with the bulge.
In the Milky Way it has been discovered that the large majority
of the low metallicity clusters are aligned along a plane in the outer
part of the galaxy's halo. This result argues in favor of the view that
type II clusters in the galaxy were captured from a satellite galaxy,
rather than being the oldest members of the Milky Way's globular cluster
system as had been previously thought. The difference between the two
cluster types would then be explained by a time delay between when the
two galaxies formed their cluster systems.
Exotic components
Globular
clusters have a very high star density, and therefore close
interactions and near-collisions of stars occur relatively often. Due to
these chance encounters, some exotic classes of stars, such as blue stragglers, millisecond pulsars and low-mass X-ray binaries,
are much more common in globular clusters. A blue straggler is formed
from the merger of two stars, possibly as a result of an encounter with a
binary system.
The resulting star has a higher temperature than comparable stars in
the cluster with the same luminosity, and thus differs from the main sequence stars formed at the beginning of the cluster.
Globular cluster M15 may have an intermediate-mass black hole at its core. NASA image.
Astronomers have searched for black holes
within globular clusters since the 1970s. The resolution requirements
for this task, however, are exacting, and it is only with the Hubble space telescope that the first confirmed discoveries have been made. In independent programs, a 4,000 M☉ intermediate-mass black hole has been suggested to exist based on HST observations in the globular cluster M15 and a 20,000 M☉ black hole in the Mayall II cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy. Both x-ray and radio emissions from Mayall II appear to be consistent with an intermediate-mass black hole.
They are the first black holes discovered that were intermediate in mass between the conventional stellar-mass black hole and the supermassive black holes
discovered at the cores of galaxies. The mass of these intermediate
mass black holes is proportional to the mass of the clusters, following a
pattern previously discovered between supermassive black holes and
their surrounding galaxies.
Claims of intermediate mass black holes have been met with some
skepticism. The heaviest objects in globular clusters are expected to
migrate to the cluster center due to mass segregation.
As pointed out in two papers by Holger Baumgardt and collaborators, the
mass-to-light ratio should rise sharply towards the center of the
cluster, even without a black hole, in both M15 and Mayall II.
Color-magnitude diagram
Messier 5 is a globular cluster consisting of hundreds of thousands of stars bound together by their collective gravity.
The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR-diagram) is a graph of a large sample of stars that plots their visual
absolute magnitude against their color index.
The
color index, B−V, is the difference between the magnitude of the star in
blue light, or B, and the magnitude in visual light (green-yellow), or
V. Large positive values indicate a red star with a cool surface temperature, while negative values imply a blue star with a hotter surface.
When the stars near the Sun
are plotted on an HR diagram, it displays a distribution of stars of
various masses, ages, and compositions. Many of the stars lie relatively
close to a sloping curve with increasing absolute magnitude as the
stars are hotter, known as main-sequence
stars. However the diagram also typically includes stars that are in
later stages of their evolution and have wandered away from this
main-sequence curve.
As all the stars of a globular cluster are at approximately the
same distance from the Earth, their absolute magnitudes differ from
their visual magnitude
by about the same amount. The main-sequence stars in the globular
cluster will fall along a line that is believed to be comparable to
similar stars in the solar neighborhood. The accuracy of this assumption
is confirmed by comparable results obtained by comparing the magnitudes
of nearby short-period variables, such as RR Lyrae stars and Cepheid variables, with those in the cluster.
By matching up these curves on the HR diagram the absolute
magnitude of main-sequence stars in the cluster can also be determined.
This in turn provides a distance estimate to the cluster, based on the
visual magnitude of the stars. The difference between the relative and
absolute magnitude, the distance modulus, yields this estimate of the distance.
When the stars of a particular globular cluster are plotted on an
HR diagram, in many cases nearly all of the stars fall upon a
relatively well-defined curve. This differs from the HR diagram of stars
near the Sun, which lumps together stars of differing ages and origins.
The shape of the curve for a globular cluster is characteristic of a
grouping of stars that were formed at approximately the same time and
from the same materials, differing only in their initial mass. As the
position of each star in the HR diagram varies with age, the shape of
the curve for a globular cluster can be used to measure the overall age
of the star population.
However, the above-mentioned historic process of determining the
age and distance to globular clusters is not as robust as first thought,
since the morphology and luminosity of globular cluster stars in
color-magnitude diagrams are influenced by numerous parameters, many of
which are still being actively researched. Certain clusters even display
populations that are absent from other globular clusters (e.g., blue
hook stars), or feature multiple populations. The historical paradigm
that all globular clusters consist of stars born at exactly the same
time, or sharing exactly the same chemical abundance, has likewise been
overturned (e.g., NGC 2808).
Further, the morphology of the cluster stars in a color-magnitude
diagram, and that includes the brightness of distance indicators such
as RR Lyrae variable
members, can be influenced by observational biases. One such effect is
called blending, and it arises because the cores of globular clusters
are so dense that in low-resolution observations multiple (unresolved)
stars may appear as a single target. Thus the brightness measured for
that seemingly single star (e.g., an RR Lyrae variable) is erroneously
too bright, given those unresolved stars contributed to the brightness
determined.
Consequently, the computed distance is wrong, and more importantly,
certain researchers have argued that the blending effect can introduce a
systematic uncertainty into the cosmic distance ladder, and may bias the estimated age of the Universe and the Hubble constant.
Color-magnitude diagram for the globular cluster M3.
Note the characteristic "knee" in the curve at magnitude 19 where stars
begin entering the giant stage of their evolutionary path.
The most massive main-sequence stars will also have the highest
absolute magnitude, and these will be the first to evolve into the giant star stage. As the cluster ages, stars of successively lower masses will also enter the giant star
stage. Thus the age of a single population cluster can be measured by
looking for the stars that are just beginning to enter the giant star
stage. This forms a "knee" in the HR diagram, bending to the upper right
from the main-sequence line. The absolute magnitude at this bend is
directly a function of the age of globular cluster, so an age scale can
be plotted on an axis parallel to the magnitude.
In addition, globular clusters can be dated by looking at the
temperatures of the coolest white dwarfs. Typical results for globular
clusters are that they may be as old as 12.7 billion years. This is in contrast to open clusters which are only tens of millions of years old.
The ages of globular clusters place a bound on the age limit of
the entire universe. This lower limit has been a significant constraint
in cosmology.
Historically, astronomers were faced with age estimates of globular
clusters that appeared older than cosmological models would allow.
However, better measurements of cosmological parameters through deep sky
surveys and satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope appear to
have resolved this issue.
Evolutionary studies of globular clusters can also be used to
determine changes due to the starting composition of the gas and dust
that formed the cluster. That is, the evolutionary tracks
change with changes in the abundance of heavy elements. The data
obtained from studies of globular clusters are then used to study the
evolution of the Milky Way as a whole.
In globular clusters a few stars known as blue stragglers
are observed, apparently continuing the main sequence in the direction
of brighter, bluer stars. The origins of these stars is still unclear,
but most models suggest that these stars are the result of mass transfer
in multiple star systems.
Morphology
NGC 411 is classified as an open cluster.
In contrast to open clusters, most globular clusters remain
gravitationally bound for time periods comparable to the life spans of
the majority of their stars. However, a possible exception is when
strong tidal interactions with other large masses result in the
dispersal of the stars.
After they are formed, the stars in the globular cluster begin to
interact gravitationally with each other. As a result, the velocity
vectors of the stars are steadily modified, and the stars lose any
history of their original velocity. The characteristic interval for this
to occur is the relaxation time.
This is related to the characteristic length of time a star needs to
cross the cluster as well as the number of stellar masses in the system. The value of the relaxation time varies by cluster, but the mean value is on the order of 109 years.
| Galaxy | Ellipticity |
|---|---|
| Milky Way | 0.07±0.04 |
| LMC | 0.16±0.05 |
| SMC | 0.19±0.06 |
| M31 | 0.09±0.04 |
Although globular clusters generally appear spherical in form,
ellipticities can occur due to tidal interactions. Clusters within the
Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are typically oblate spheroids in shape, while those in the Large Magellanic Cloud are more elliptical.
Radii
Astronomers characterize the morphology of a globular cluster by means of standard radii. These are the core radius (rc), the half-light radius (rh), and the tidal (or Jacobi) radius (rt).
The overall luminosity of the cluster steadily decreases with distance
from the core, and the core radius is the distance at which the apparent
surface luminosity has dropped by half.
A comparable quantity is the half-light radius, or the distance from
the core within which half the total luminosity from the cluster is
received. This is typically larger than the core radius.
The half-light radius includes stars in the outer part of the
cluster that happen to lie along the line of sight, so theorists will
also use the half-mass radius (rm)—the radius
from the core that contains half the total mass of the cluster. When the
half-mass radius of a cluster is small relative to the overall size, it
has a dense core. An example of this is Messier 3 (M3), which has an overall visible dimension of about 18 arc minutes, but a half-mass radius of only 1.12 arc minutes.
Almost all globular clusters have a half-light radius of less than 10 pc, although there are well-established globular clusters with very large radii (i.e. NGC 2419 (Rh = 18 pc) and Palomar 14 (Rh = 25 pc)).
Finally the tidal radius, or Hill sphere,
is the distance from the center of the globular cluster at which the
external gravitation of the galaxy has more influence over the stars in
the cluster than does the cluster itself. This is the distance at which
the individual stars belonging to a cluster can be separated away by the
galaxy. The tidal radius of M3 is about 40 arc minutes, or about 113 pc at the distance of 10.4 kpc.
Mass segregation, luminosity and core collapse
In
measuring the luminosity curve of a given globular cluster as a
function of distance from the core, most clusters in the Milky Way
increase steadily in luminosity as this distance decreases, up to a
certain distance from the core, then the luminosity levels off.
Typically this distance is about 1–2 parsecs from the core. However
about 20% of the globular clusters have undergone a process termed "core
collapse". In this type of cluster, the luminosity continues to
increase steadily all the way to the core region. An example of a core-collapsed globular is
M15.
47 Tucanae – the second most luminous globular cluster in the Milky Way, after Omega Centauri.
Core-collapse is thought to occur when the more massive stars in a
globular cluster encounter their less massive companions. Over time,
dynamic processes cause individual stars to migrate from the center of
the cluster to the outside. This results in a net loss of kinetic energy
from the core region, leading the remaining stars grouped in the core
region to occupy a more compact volume. When this gravothermal
instability occurs, the central region of the cluster becomes densely
crowded with stars and the surface brightness of the cluster forms a power-law cusp. (Note that a core collapse is not the only mechanism that can cause such a luminosity distribution; a massive black hole at the core can also result in a luminosity cusp.) Over a lengthy period of time this leads to a concentration of massive stars near the core, a phenomenon called mass segregation.
The dynamical heating effect of binary star systems works to
prevent an initial core collapse of the cluster. When a star passes near
a binary system, the orbit of the latter pair tends to contract,
releasing energy. Only after the primordial supply of binaries is
exhausted due to interactions can a deeper core collapse proceed. In contrast, the effect of tidal shocks as a globular cluster repeatedly passes through the plane of a spiral galaxy tends to significantly accelerate core collapse.
The different stages of core-collapse may be divided into three
phases. During a globular cluster's adolescence, the process of
core-collapse begins with stars near the core. However, the interactions
between binary star
systems prevents further collapse as the cluster approaches middle age.
Finally, the central binaries are either disrupted or ejected,
resulting in a tighter concentration at the core.
The interaction of stars in the collapsed core region causes
tight binary systems to form. As other stars interact with these tight
binaries, they increase the energy at the core, which causes the cluster
to re-expand. As the mean time for a core collapse is typically less
than the age of the galaxy, many of a galaxy's globular clusters may
have passed through a core collapse stage, then re-expanded.
Globular cluster NGC 1854 is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been used to provide convincing
observational evidence of this stellar mass-sorting process in globular
clusters. Heavier stars slow down and crowd at the cluster's core, while
lighter stars pick up speed and tend to spend more time at the
cluster's periphery. The globular star cluster 47 Tucanae,
which is made up of about 1 million stars, is one of the densest
globular clusters in the Southern Hemisphere. This cluster was subjected
to an intensive photographic survey, which allowed astronomers to track
the motion of its stars. Precise velocities were obtained for nearly
15,000 stars in this cluster.
A 2008 study by John Fregeau of 13 globular clusters in the Milky
Way shows that three of them have an unusually large number of X-ray
sources, or X-ray binaries, suggesting the clusters are middle-aged.
Previously, these globular clusters had been classified as being in old
age because they had very tight concentrations of stars in their
centers, another test of age used by astronomers. The implication is
that most globular clusters, including the other ten studied by Fregeau,
are not in middle age as previously thought, but are actually in
'adolescence'.
The overall luminosities of the globular clusters within the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy can be modeled by means of a Gaussian curve. This Gaussian can be represented by means of an average magnitude Mv and a variance σ2.
This distribution of globular cluster luminosities is called the
Globular Cluster Luminosity Function (GCLF). (For the Milky Way, Mv = −7.20 ± 0.13, σ = 1.1 ± 0.1 magnitudes.) The GCLF has also been used as a "standard candle"
for measuring the distance to other galaxies, under the assumption that
the globular clusters in remote galaxies follow the same principles as
they do in the Milky Way.
N-body simulations
Computing the interactions between the stars within a globular cluster requires solving what is termed the N-body problem. That is, each of the stars within the cluster continually interacts with the other N−1 stars, where N is the total number of stars in the cluster. The naive CPU computational "cost" for a dynamic simulation increases in proportion to N 2
(each of N objects must interact pairwise with each of the other N
objects), so the potential computing requirements to accurately simulate
such a cluster can be enormous.
An efficient method of mathematically simulating the N-body dynamics of
a globular cluster is done by subdividing into small volumes and
velocity ranges, and using probabilities to describe the locations of
the stars. The motions are then described by means of a formula called
the Fokker–Planck equation. This can be solved by a simplified form of the equation, or by running Monte Carlo simulations
and using random values. However the simulation becomes more difficult
when the effects of binaries and the interaction with external
gravitation forces (such as from the Milky Way galaxy) must also be
included.
The results of N-body simulations have shown that the stars can
follow unusual paths through the cluster, often forming loops and often
falling more directly toward the core than would a single star orbiting a
central mass. In addition, due to interactions with other stars that
result in an increase in velocity, some of the stars gain sufficient
energy to escape the cluster. Over long periods of time this will result
in a dissipation of the cluster, a process termed evaporation. The typical time scale for the evaporation of a globular cluster is 1010 years.
In 2010 it became possible to directly compute, star by star, N-body
simulations of a globular cluster over the course of its lifetime.
Binary stars
form a significant portion of the total population of stellar systems,
with up to half of all stars occurring in binary systems. Numerical
simulations of globular clusters have demonstrated that binaries can
hinder and even reverse the process of core collapse in globular
clusters. When a star in a cluster has a gravitational encounter with a
binary system, a possible result is that the binary becomes more tightly
bound and kinetic energy is added to the solitary star. When the
massive stars in the cluster are sped up by this process, it reduces the
contraction at the core and limits core collapse.
The ultimate fate of a globular cluster must be either to accrete stars at its core, causing its steady contraction, or gradual shedding of stars from its outer layers.
Intermediate forms
Messier 10 lies about 15,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Ophiuchus.
The distinction between cluster types is not always
clear-cut, and objects have been found that blur the
lines between the categories. For example, BH 176
in the southern part of the Milky Way has properties
of both an open and a globular cluster.
In 2005, astronomers discovered a completely new type of star
cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is, in several ways, very similar
to globular clusters. The new-found clusters contain hundreds of
thousands of stars, a similar number to that found in globular clusters.
The clusters share other characteristics with globular clusters such as
stellar populations and metallicity. What distinguishes them from the
globular clusters is that they are much larger – several hundred
light-years across – and hundreds of times less dense. The distances
between the stars are, therefore, much greater within the newly
discovered extended clusters. Parametrically, these clusters lie
somewhere between a globular cluster and a dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
How these clusters are formed is not yet known, but their
formation might well be related to that of globular clusters. Why M31
has such clusters, while the Milky Way does not, is not yet known. It is
also unknown if any other galaxy contains these types of clusters, but
it would be very unlikely that M31 is the sole galaxy with extended
clusters.
Tidal encounters
When
a globular cluster has a close encounter with a large mass, such as the
core region of a galaxy, it undergoes a tidal interaction. The
difference in the pull of gravity between the part of the cluster
nearest the mass and the pull on the furthest part of the cluster
results in a tidal force. A "tidal shock" occurs whenever the orbit of a cluster takes it through the plane of a galaxy.
As a result of a tidal shock, streams of stars can be pulled away
from the cluster halo, leaving only the core part of the cluster. These
tidal interaction effects create tails of stars that can extend up to
several degrees of arc away from the cluster.
These tails typically both precede and follow the cluster along its
orbit. The tails can accumulate significant portions of the original
mass of the cluster, and can form clump-like features.
The globular cluster Palomar 5, for example, is near the apogalactic point
of its orbit after passing through the Milky Way. Streams of stars
extend outward toward the front and rear of the orbital path of this
cluster, stretching out to distances of 13,000 light-years.
Tidal interactions have stripped away much of the mass from Palomar 5,
and further interactions as it passes through the galactic core are
expected to transform it into a long stream of stars orbiting the Milky
Way halo.
Tidal interactions add kinetic energy into a globular cluster,
dramatically increasing the evaporation rate and shrinking the size of
the cluster.
Not only does tidal shock strip off the outer stars from a globular
cluster, but the increased evaporation accelerates the process of core
collapse. The same physical mechanism may be at work in dwarf spheroidal galaxies such as the Sagittarius Dwarf, which appears to be undergoing tidal disruption due to its proximity to the Milky Way.
Orbits
There are many globular clusters with a retrograde orbit round the Milky Way Galaxy. A hypervelocity globular cluster was discovered around Messier 87 in 2014, having a velocity in excess of the escape velocity of M87.
Planets
Astronomers are searching for exoplanets of stars in globular star clusters.
In 2000, the results of a search for giant planets in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae
were announced. The lack of any successful discoveries suggests that
the abundance of elements (other than hydrogen or helium) necessary to
build these planets may need to be at least 40% of the abundance in the
Sun. Terrestrial planets
are built from heavier elements such as silicon, iron and magnesium.
The very low abundance of these elements in globular clusters means that
the member stars have a far lower likelihood of hosting Earth-mass
planets, when compared to stars in the neighborhood of the Sun. Hence
the halo region of the Milky Way galaxy, including globular cluster
members, are unlikely to host habitable terrestrial planets.
In spite of the lower likelihood of giant planet formation, just such an object has been found in the globular cluster Messier 4. This planet was detected orbiting a pulsar in the binary star system PSR B1620-26. The eccentric and highly inclined
orbit of the planet suggests it may have been formed around another
star in the cluster, then was later "exchanged" into its current
arrangement.
The likelihood of close encounters between stars in a globular cluster
can disrupt planetary systems, some of which break loose to become free floating planets. Even close orbiting planets can become disrupted, potentially leading to orbital decay and an increase in orbital eccentricity and tidal effects.
