Globular star clusters as a research area focuses on dense, gravitationally bound stellar systems that orbit galactic halos and serve as laboratories for studying stellar dynamics, stellar evolution, and galactic formation and assembly. Research investigates their internal kinematics, mass functions, multiple stellar populations, chemical abundance patterns, and dynamical processes such as core collapse, mass segregation, and tidal stripping. Globular clusters are also key to constraining ages of galaxies, tracing dark matter distributions, and testing N-body simulations, stellar population synthesis models, and theories of star formation under extreme density and low-metallicity conditions.
A new study led by astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin proposes a theory that could solve two astronomical riddles at once: the nature of Little Red Dots and the origin of globular clusters. Rather than representing ...
Astronomy
Jul 20, 2026
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The 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) captures a vibrant scene filled with swirls and stars reminiscent of Van Gogh's The Starry Night. This new cosmic masterpiece features the glowing ...
Astronomy
Jul 16, 2026
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The massive globular star cluster Omega Centauri has puzzled astronomers for decades. It should be filled with black holes left behind by exploding stars, yet evidence for them is scarce. Now, astronomers using archival data ...
Astronomy
Jul 13, 2026
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This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showcases Messier 3 (M3), one of the Milky Way's most massive globular clusters, or spherical collections of gravitationally bound stars.
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2026
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The galaxy Centaurus A is about 11 million light-years away and is the fifth-brightest galaxy in the sky. Because it's so bright, it's been studied extensively by amateur and professional astronomers alike. Also called NGC ...
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2026
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Astronomers using computer simulations have investigated whether a class of star clusters nicknamed "cosmic wallflowers" could be the long-sought ancestors of the globular clusters we see orbiting galaxies today. Their paper, ...
More than 500,000 stars blaze red, white, and blue in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, released in celebration of the United States' 250th anniversary. The image showcases Messier 3 (M3), one of the Milky Way ...
Astronomy
Jul 3, 2026
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The subject of today's NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is an ancient inhabitant of our galaxy. This sparkling scene features a globular cluster: a collection of tens of thousands to millions of stars, all tightly bound ...
Astronomy
Jun 26, 2026
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Researchers using two of humanity's most powerful observatories—NASA's James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes—have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster, as it was once classified, offering new insight ...
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2026
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Using NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft, astronomers have performed deep X-ray observations of a galactic globular cluster known as NGC 6540. The new observational campaign, described June 1 on the preprint server arXiv, focused ...
