Star Clusters: Families of Stars Bound Together

Star clusters are groups of stars held together by their mutual gravity.
They form from the same giant cloud of gas and dust, making their stars siblings.
Open clusters, like the Pleiades, contain a few hundred loosely bound young stars.
Globular clusters can pack hundreds of thousands of ancient stars into a tight sphere.
Studying clusters helps astronomers understand how stars are born and evolve.
Many star clusters orbit in the halos of galaxies, including our Milky Way.
Open clusters often disperse over time as stars drift apart.
Globular clusters are among the oldest known objects in the universe, some over 12 billion years old.
Clusters are prime targets for spotting exoplanets and testing stellar theories.
To the naked eye, some clusters appear as hazy patches, later revealed as star families through telescopes.