NEW YORK: A cosmic dinosaur is about to hatch, say scientists, who have discovered what may be the first known example of a globular cluster on verge of being born – an unimaginably massive, extremely dense, but star-free cloud of molecular gas.
A globular cluster is a huge compact spherical star cluster, typically of old stars, a dazzling agglomeration of up to one million ancient stars, in the outer regions of a galaxy.
Globular clusters are among the Universe’s oldest objects. Although abundant in and around several galaxies, about-to-be-born examples are vanishingly rare, and the conditions required to create new ones have never been detected …. until now, that is.