Billions of orphan stars discovered by the first images of the European space telescope “Euclid” (PHOTO)

The first scientific images taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid Space Telescope have revealed more than 1,500 billion orphan stars (that is, stars outside galaxies) scattered throughout the Perseus galaxy cluster.

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This discovery sheds light on the origin of these celestial travelers, reports the press service of the University of Nottingham (UK).

The Perseus Cluster, located 240 million light-years from Earth, is one of the most massive structures in the Universe, containing thousands of galaxies. However, among this cosmic ensemble, the Euclid satellite detected a faint ghostly light – drifting orphan stars between the cluster galaxies, the article notes.

Although the scattered light from the orphan stars is more than 100,000 times fainter than the darkest night sky on Earth, it is distributed over such a large volume that in total it accounts for about 20% of the luminosity of the entire cluster, the researchers note.

It is noted that stars form naturally within galaxies, so the presence of orphan stars outside these structures has raised intriguing questions about their origin.

• orphan stars are characterized by a bluish tint and a crowded arrangement. Based on these features, the astronomers involved in the study suggest that the stars were torn from the surrounding galaxies and resulted in the complete disintegration of smaller galaxy clusters known as dwarf galaxies;
• Once separated from their parent galaxies, the orphaned stars were expected to orbit the largest galaxy in the cluster. However, this study uncovered a surprising finding—orphan stars orbiting a point between the two brightest galaxies in the cluster.

This new observation suggests that the massive Perseus cluster may have recently experienced a merger with another group of galaxies, the scientists note. “This recent merger may have resulted in a gravitational disturbance, causing either the most massive galaxy or orphan stars to deviate from their expected orbits, leading to the observed divergence.”

Source: Racurs

David

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