04 Sep 2021 Blue Straggler
Blue Straggler
The Context:
When one star swallows up another, a blue straggler forms, which is a bigger and bluer star.
Why is this in the news?
Indian scientists have conducted a thorough investigation on the development of blue stragglers.
What exactly are Blue Stragglers?
- On open or globular clusters, blue stragglers are a type of star. They are larger and bluer than the other stars, making them stand out.
- A globular cluster is a star cluster that is spherical in shape. Gravity holds globular clusters together tightly, resulting in their spherical forms and great concentrations of stars near their centres.
- Blue stragglers were discovered for the first time in 1953 by Allan Sandage.
Indian researchers conducted the following research:
- 228 clusters with a total of 868 blue stragglers were analyzed by Indian researchers. They calculated the formation mechanisms by comparing the mass of the blue stragglers to the mass of the turnoff stars (the cluster’s most massive “normal” stars). They discovered that:
- Half of the blue stragglers are generated by mass transfer from a close binary partner star, one-third are presumably formed by two-star collisions, and the rest are formed by interactions between more than two stars.
- The significance of this research is that it will aid in the better understanding of stellar systems. It will aid in the discovery of exciting findings in lar studies.
Source: PIB
Syllabus: GS 3 (Science and Development)
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Yojna IAS Current Affairs Team
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