ASTRONEWS
Nearest
neighbor
0°Antares
39.12°Achernar
39.11°Fomalhaut
39.11°Regulus
37.05°
Canopus
36.22°Altair
34.19°Arcturus
32.79°Spica
32.79°Capella
30.69°Deneb
23.85°Vega
23.85°to Alpha Centaurito Fomalhautto Vegato Achernarto Polluxto Siriusto Aldebaranto Denebto Spicato Arcturus
to VegaFAST
FAC TWWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 21SPACE CIRCLES. Astronomers found small exoplanets have mostly cir-
cular orbits, in contrast to the eccentric paths of many larger exoplanets.Globular cluster science got
even more exciting — and
strange — this spring as
scientists revealed in The
Astrophysical Journal the dis-
covery of a possible precursor
to such a conglomeration of
stars as well as a few outli-
ers from what we thought
we understood about these
objects. Most globular clusters
observed today, including the
150 known in the Milky Way,
formed some 12 billion years
ago, so newborn finds are rare
and the environments that
would create such dense stel-
lar clusters have never been
seen — until now. Using the
Atacama Large Millimeter/
submillimeter Array (ALMA),
scientists have discovered a
star-free cloud containing 50
million times the mass of the
Sun in molecular gas in the
merging Antennae galaxies.
They believe this environment
is sufficiently dense to survive
the forces that will try to pull
the developing cluster apart.
“We may be witnessing one ofthe most ancient and extreme
modes of star formation in the
universe,” says Kelsey Johnson
of the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville and lead author
of the June 10 paper on the
protocluster.
Meanwhile, scientists using
the Very Large Telescope to sur-
vey 125 globular clusters in the
giant galaxy Centaurus A found
a group of outliers that don’t
fit the brightness-to-mass ratio
typical of these objects. These“dark” globular clusters contain
far more mass than their bright-
nesses indicated they should.
The team, led by Matt Taylor, a
Ph.D. student at the Pontifical
Catholic University of Chile in
Santiago, mentions various
possibilities for the extra mass
in their May 20 paper, including
intermediate black holes and
dark matter, but they conclude
that right now these objects
are a mystery that will require
further study. — K. F.Scientists
uncover
globular
cluster
surprises
WON’T YOU BE MY
NEIGHBOR?
ISOLATION CHAMBER. The magnitude 1.16 star
Fomalhaut often goes by the moniker “The Solitary
One” because no other bright star lies in its vicin-
ity. But is this denizen of Piscis Austrinus the most
isolated of the sky’s luminaries? Not quite. A look at
the closest neighbors for all of the night sky’s bright-
est suns (those above magnitude 1.5) shows Antares
to be the loneliest, separated from Alpha Centauri
by 39.12°. Fomalhaut and Achernar are a mere 0.01°
closer together. Increasing the magnitude threshold
to 2.5 doesn’t help, either; Fomalhaut then falls to
sixth place, with Altair rising to the top spot.
ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLYAmong the sky’s bright stars,
Alpha and Beta Crucis are the closest
companions; just 4.24° separate these
neighbors in the Southern Cross.CLUSTER FORMATION FIRST.
Using ALMA, scientists studied
various molecular clouds in the
Antennae galaxies and found one
incredibly massive and dense
example (bottom image) that likely
will become a globular cluster.
HUBBLE (NASA/ESA)/B. WHITMORE (STSCI); K. JOHNSON
(UVA); ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ)Telescopes.net
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