Gemini Public Image Release
Seeing Where Stars Collide
Using the advanced adaptive optics system GeMS, on the Gemini
South telescope, astronomers have imaged a beautiful stellar jewelbox — a tightly packed cluster of stars that is one of the few places in
our Galaxy where astronomers think stars can actually collide.
Scientists have imaged a cluster of stars, heavily obscured by material in our Galaxy, where
stars are so densely packed that it is likely a rare environment where stars can collide. “It’s a
bit like a stellar billiards table, where the probability of collisions depends on the size of the
table and on the number of billiard balls on it,” said Francesco R. Ferraro of the University
of Bologna (Italy), one of the team members who used the Gemini Observatory to make
the observations.
Liller 1 is a tight sphere of stars known as a globular cluster. Globular clusters orbit in a
large halo around the center, or nucleus, of our Galaxy; many of the closer globular clusters
are spectacular showpieces, even in small telescopes or binoculars. “This isn’t one of these
showpieces, it is so obscured by material in the central bulge of our Galaxy that it is almost
completely invisible in visual light,” observed Sara Sarachino of the University of Bologna
and lead author on the paper. Indeed, Liller 1 is located at almost 30,000 light years from
Earth, and only about 3200 light-years away from the center of the Milky W