On a clear and dark night from a position with low levels of pollution, the Andromeda Galaxy can be easily observed in the sky by the unaided eye, even though it is about 2.5 million light-years away from Earth. The unaided eye, however, can only perceive the galaxy as a whole and is unable to distinguish features within the galaxy. Luckily, microscopes combined with the intellect of many bright astronomers over the years have allowed us to better understand what the human eye cannot see, in particular what lies beyond the Milky Way Galaxy in our neighboring galaxy. This paper will focus on some of the recent discoveries and observations on the Andromeda Galaxy that have been key in helping our planet comprehend what lies beyond us.
Recently, …show more content…
In their recent studies, scientists have discovered through their data on clusters varying in size, age, and distance in the M31 galaxy that the IMF is actually fairly consistent. Even though the stars that were examined differed from less than a tenth the size of the sun to a hundred times as large, from four million years old to over twenty million years old, and from one side of the galaxy to the opposite side, the clusters all seemed have a uniform distribution of stars based on color and size. This is surprising, given the fact that star formation in and of itself is very complex. Having gathered this new data, astronomers took the discovery a step further than just observing the similarities between different star clusters; they then viewed some of the brighter and more massive stars to determine the speed at which star clusters are producing stars and to find a more accurate mass for each star cluster. With this new data allowing astronomers to have a better understanding of the mass of a star cluster and the production of stars within a cluster, it was discovered that the estimated mass that they originally had for each star cluster was less than the actual mass of it. This is because the original estimation did not account for all of the smaller, less bright stars within the cluster. We are now able …show more content…
Heavy elements are produced within a star and then released through a super nova, which is essentially a star explosion. As stated in class, the universe is over 13 billion years old. Most of the stars began to form about 10 billion years ago. For the 3-4 billion year gap between the beginning of the universe and the beginning of the majority of star production, anything that formed was formed without all of the heavy elements produced over the last 10 billion years of super nova.
I have found my recent research on star clusters and their history and formation to be extremely interesting, as I have always viewed it to be something outside of the horizons of my understanding. I feel as though if I do understand them significantly more, though my research did not fully answer my questions. My main questions deal with star formation. Why are the stars that were formed small not big and vice versa? What causes the collapse that leads to star formation? At what point is a super nova ready to occur? Has this process ever been
Recently, …show more content…
In their recent studies, scientists have discovered through their data on clusters varying in size, age, and distance in the M31 galaxy that the IMF is actually fairly consistent. Even though the stars that were examined differed from less than a tenth the size of the sun to a hundred times as large, from four million years old to over twenty million years old, and from one side of the galaxy to the opposite side, the clusters all seemed have a uniform distribution of stars based on color and size. This is surprising, given the fact that star formation in and of itself is very complex. Having gathered this new data, astronomers took the discovery a step further than just observing the similarities between different star clusters; they then viewed some of the brighter and more massive stars to determine the speed at which star clusters are producing stars and to find a more accurate mass for each star cluster. With this new data allowing astronomers to have a better understanding of the mass of a star cluster and the production of stars within a cluster, it was discovered that the estimated mass that they originally had for each star cluster was less than the actual mass of it. This is because the original estimation did not account for all of the smaller, less bright stars within the cluster. We are now able …show more content…
Heavy elements are produced within a star and then released through a super nova, which is essentially a star explosion. As stated in class, the universe is over 13 billion years old. Most of the stars began to form about 10 billion years ago. For the 3-4 billion year gap between the beginning of the universe and the beginning of the majority of star production, anything that formed was formed without all of the heavy elements produced over the last 10 billion years of super nova.
I have found my recent research on star clusters and their history and formation to be extremely interesting, as I have always viewed it to be something outside of the horizons of my understanding. I feel as though if I do understand them significantly more, though my research did not fully answer my questions. My main questions deal with star formation. Why are the stars that were formed small not big and vice versa? What causes the collapse that leads to star formation? At what point is a super nova ready to occur? Has this process ever been