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Orderly Star Cluster Formation in Chaotic Galaxy Merger
14 Julio 2009: Star clusters can be thought of as fossils of previous epochs of star formation. Due to this, and their large luminosities, many studies have attempted to use them to peer into the past and reveal how galaxies have formed and evolved. An international team of astronomers, led by Nate Bastian (University of Cambridge) and Gelys Trancho (Gemini Observatory), used the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope to observe 16 massive star clusters in the nearest pair of merging galaxies, the Antennae (NGC 4038/39), see geminiann09016a & b. The spectra, (see Figure 3) complemented with deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, allowed the determination of the age, mass and velocity of each cluster. The cluster population of the Antennae has been extensively studied in the past, due to the vast quantity of young clusters residing there, but this is the first study of a large sample of clusters …