Cosmic fireworks in the clouds: Volunteer detectives sought for Magellanic Clouds Cluster Search
Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - 13:40
in Astronomy & Space
Caught in a cosmic dance, our nearest neighbor galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, are cartwheeling and circling each other as they fall toward our galaxy, the Milky Way. The gravitational interaction between the Clouds sparks cosmic fireworks—bursts of star formation as new clusters of stars flame on. How many and what kind of star clusters have been born this way over the history of the Clouds? A new project, the Local Group Cluster Search, invites citizen scientists to help find out!