Tomasz Nowakowski is a member of the physics.org community.
Astronomers used the VLT Survey Telescope to investigate a star cluster in the LMC. The results were published on arXiv.org.
The LMC has a star cluster called KM HK 1762. The age of the cluster is estimated to be about 2 billion years old. An analysis of the color-magnitude diagram shows that the cluster may be older than thought.
The issue of a star cluster in the LMC age gap was investigated by a team of astronomer led by Massimiliano Gatto. There are no star clusters with ages between 4 and 10 billion years in the LMC. Two confirmed star clusters have been identified so far.
Gatto's team analyzed the deep optical photometry of KM HK 1762 obtained with the Yes, Magellanic Clouds Again survey. The data from the satellite was included in the study.
The results of the new study of the star cluster were reported in the letter.
The new study states that the proper age of KMHK 1762 should be greater. The cluster is estimated to be about 5 billion years old by the telescopes. There are three star clusters in the LMC age gap.
The reddening of KM HK 1762 is 0.08 mag and its metallicity is at a level of -0.65. There are a few stars in the red giant branch and in the red clump in the CMD.
The authors of the paper found a question about the age gap in LMC. The age gap may be observational due to the combination of shallow photometry and limited investigation of the outer regions of LMC.
Most of the works devoted to the search of undiscovered star clusters focused in the LMC central regions leaving the outskirts were conducted on the basis of photometrically shallow surveys.
More information: M. Gatto et al, KMHK 1762: Another star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud age gap. arXiv:2207.09478v1 [astro-ph.GA], arxiv.org/abs/2207.09478There is a science network.
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