Youthful Appearance of Stars Known as Blue Stragglers Explained

ScienceDaily ^ | Thursday, December 24, 2009 | University of Wisconsin-Madison release

[SunkenCiv]

For almost 50 years, astronomers have puzzled over the youthful appearance of stars known as blue stragglers... They shine brightly, they are older than they appear, and they have, disconcertingly, gained mass at a late stage of life... Now, Mathieu and Wisconsin colleague Aaron Geller, writing Dec. 24 in the journal Nature, show that blue stragglers, in most if not all cases, steal that mass from companion stars and that they sometimes do so by crashing into their neighbors, a scenario once thought far-fetched by astronomers. In the new Nature report, Geller and Mathieu show that the mass-gathering ways of blue stragglers conform to all three of the scenarios astrophysicists have dreamed up for them to get bigger and continue to shine brightly when stars of a similar age and mass have evolved to stellar corpses. The possibility of stellar smashups, says Mathieu, is greatly enhanced in the star cluster mosh pit as binary star systems brush up against one another and swirl into intersecting and, sometimes, collision-course orbits... Situated in the sky near Polaris, the North Star, and located some 6,000 light years from Earth, NGC 188 is a gathering of perhaps several thousand stars, all about the same age, and has 21 blue stragglers.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

I really mean it, I'm going to bed.

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[hellbender]

blue stragglers, in most if not all cases, steal that mass from companion stars

What's the surprise? That's simply socialism on a stellar scale!

[JoeProBono]

[ItsForTheChildren]

...and they have, disconcertingly, gained mass at a late stage of life...

Boy, I know how that goes.

[cherry]

I really thought this was about the Hollywood cabal.....and their numerous facial uplifts,tucks,smoothing,plumping, etc along with the rest of their sagging parts.....LOL

btw.....I like her but Dolly Parton looks horrible....a bit too much facial work and botox....yikes....

[devolve]

[potlatch]

Great photo devolve. I have this one, or a similar one, but can’t find it. Looks like you overlayed it with the ‘starz’ on this one and later posted one with the TPBG.

Busy in the early AM hours again!!