The star cluster closest to the center of the Milky Way that we have discovered appears to be suffering. This event may give us insight into how torn star clusters made the galactic center so dense. Astronomers are watching clusters of stars called globular clusters hurtle toward an inevitable demise. The star cluster known as VVV CL002 is moving toward the center of the Milky Way, where it will meet a sad fate. This process has probably occurred countless times throughout the history of galaxies, but this is the first time we have observed it.

VVV CL002 is the closest known spheroidal cluster to the center of our Smooth Way universe. It is as it were 1300 light a long time absent from Soil. It was found in 2021, and presently astrophysicist Noriyuki Matsunaga of the College of Tokyo and his colleagues have measured its circle and the composition of a few of its constituent stars much more precisely than ever before.
The unused perceptions show that usually a generally antiquated cluster. It shaped from stars in a bulge at the center of our world.Not in a more diffuse cloud of stars called the galactic radiance, or in another system that was afterward retained into the Smooth Way. Recreations appeared its circle to be inside 620 light-years of the galactic center—so near that it is improbable to outlive long sufficient.

However, the galactic center is extremely dense with stars and cosmic dust, making it extremely difficult to observe these phenomena, and VVV CL002 is the first star cluster in which we have observed this process. “Several globular star clusters have been discovered that are approximately the same distance from the center of the Milky Way, and these may also be destroyed,” Professor Matsunaga says. “The problem is that observing such objects is very problematic.” To understand how long this cluster will last, we need to calculate its velocity very precisely, and currently we can only calculate the approximate velocity. But Matsunaga wondered if it could survive hundreds of millions of years before being completely destroyed. “100 million years is too long for humans to observe what’s going on, but it’s too short for humans to observe enough objects in this particular process,” he says. Studying such events could provide insight into the evolution of the Milky Way’s structure. The center of a galaxy is a very dangerous place for star clusters due to strong tidal forces. Astrophysicists believe that many star clusters at the center of the Milky Way were destroyed, contributing to the formation of extremely dense environments such as galactic bulges and nuclear clusters. However, it is extremely difficult to create realistic models that can predict the long-term evolution of the complex structures inside galaxies. Therefore, by studying the surviving star clusters at the center of our galaxy, it will be possible to better understand the process of their death.

Of all the globular clusters known to date, globular cluster VVV CL002 is the closest to the center, at a distance of 0.4 kiloparsecs, but with a very high transverse velocity of 400 km s-1. Astrophysicists plan to use spectroscopic observations to study the properties of this cluster and its implications for galactic astronomy. Method. In this study, the authors were able to measure the radial velocity and chemical diversity of stars for the first time using high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy. result. Scientists discovered that the cluster’s orbit is restricted to 1.0 kiloparsecs from the center and 0.2 kiloparsecs at the galactic periphery, suggesting that the cluster is not just a halo wanderer, but is actually under harsh conditions. This suggests that it has withstood the tidal forces of the galactic millstone. Furthermore, its metallicity (concentration of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) and α-abundance ([α/Fe] ≃+0.4 and [Fe/H]=-0.54) are similar to those of other globular clusters in the galactic bulge. Similar. . Recent studies suggest that stars with such alpha excess appeared more frequently at distances of 3 to 6 kiloparsecs from the galactic center about 10 billion years ago.