Simple view of gravity does not fully explain distribution of stars in crowded clusters

Phys.org February 20, 2013

Hubble Space Telescope image of the young star cluster NGC 1818 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. KIAA researchers found to their surprise an increasing fraction of binary systems as they looked at increasingly larger distances from the cluster center, as illustrated graphically in the inset. Credit: Peking University

(Phys.org)—Gravity remains the dominant force on large astronomical scales, but when it comes to stars in young star clusters the dynamics in these crowded environments cannot be simply explained by the pull of gravity.

After analyzing Hubble Space Telescope images of star cluster NGC 1818 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, researchers at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at Peking University in Beijing found more binary star systems toward the periphery of cluster than in the center – the opposite of what they expected. The surprising distribution of binaries is thought to result from complex interactions among stars within young clusters.

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