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Open Star Clusters
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| Open clusters in the Terragen Sphere are dispersed almost at random, with some concentration in the galactic arms; they act as useful location markers in galactography | |
Loose structures that contain anywhere from a few dozen to a tens of thousand stars.
They are irregular in shape and there is a great range in size (1-20 pc) and in number of members; distribution is concentrated about the galactic plane. Many of the younger clusters contain gas and dust.
Most open clusters are young: generally less than a few hundred million years old. They are rich in the youngest and most heavy element-rich stars. Over millions of years, the tidal gravitational forces in the host galaxy tend to shred these clusters of thousands of stars, scattering the stars into the general population of stars wandering interstellar space.
An example of a young star cluster is the Pleiades; this cluster still retains traces of the hydrogen cloud it was formed from. A somewhat older cluster is the Hyades, which has spred out to cover a region fifty light years in diameter (and which formed the centre of the original Taurus Nexus). An older cluster which is even more dissipated is Collinder 285, familiar in the Inner Sphere as the asterism known as the Plough.
Most stars in the Terragen Sphere are thought to have formed inside open clusters, although some may have formed in globular clusters or in the galactic hub, and migrated to the galactic disk region.
Because of the large scale of the Orion Arm Civilisation, open cluster provide one of the few good landmarks for galactography. Most stars and worlds in the Terragen Sphere are within fifty light years of a cluster or of a particularly bright giant star; for this reason many volumes of space are identified by reference to such stars or clusters.
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- Aleph Absolute
- Blackbody Cluster
- Blenke Cluster
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- Chronos Cluster, The
- Cluster Brain
- Cluster, Stellar
- Coathanger Cluster
- Danyello M'lund Cluster, The
- Enigma Cluster, The (NGC 6755)
- Feinstein 1 cluster - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Home to the Echir-{n} - a nanobiological Alife civilisation. - Fosfo Cluster - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
A number of indexdep settlements recently founded by Epistemic radicals. - Globular Cluster
- Grand Confluence
- Hyades Sector
- Hynkarion Cluster - Text by Anders Sandberg
Local name of a small cluster of bright stars in the sky of Sullivan, which was colonized by formerly MPA clades in 5690. The Hynkarion worlds are known for its daring biotechnology/landscaping projects, especially the Monster but also the ice-cities on Tyosit II and the sentient mats of Novigti IX. - Pismis 4 Cluster - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Locally called the Silver Belt. Diverse region home to a number of non-affiliated polities, clades and phyles. The Cluster consists of more than 45 M-class red dwarf main sequence stars in the midst of a faint but extensive Gum nebulosity complex. The Pismis 4 worlds have not formed any political union, but the Jean Te Uahlg Aestheticism has for all practical purposes unified them. - Pleiades
- Prediction Cluster
- Rosette Cluster
- Sparks, The
- Tanaka Cluster
- Valhalla Cluster
Appears in Topics
Development Notes
Text by Chris Clowes
Initially published on 17 December 2001.
expanded from stub article september 2008
Initially published on 17 December 2001.
expanded from stub article september 2008
Additional Information
Data used in this map comes from several sources, including Winchell Chung's useful Galaxy Map
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/starmaps/mapindex.php#winchPoster.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/starmaps/mapindex.php#winchPoster.
