Related papers: Do globular clusters time the Universe?
We test the hypothesis that globular clusters form in supergiant molecular clouds within high-redshift galaxies. Numerical simulations demonstrate that such large, dense, and cold gas clouds assemble naturally in current hierarchical models…
Globular clusters (GCs) provide statistically significant coeval populations of stars spanning various evolutionary stages, allowing robust constraints on stellar evolution model parameters and ages. We analyze eight old Milky Way GCs with…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
We study the evolution and observability of young and compact star clusters near the Galactic center, such as the Arches cluster and the Quintuplet. The star clusters are modeled with a combination of techniques; using direct N-body,…
The ages of the most common stars - low-mass (cool) stars like the Sun, and smaller - are difficult to derive because traditional dating methods use stellar properties that either change little as the stars age or are hard to measure. The…
The Virgo and Fornax clusters of galaxies play central roles in determining the Hubble constant H_0. A powerful and direct way of establishing distances for elliptical galaxies is to use the luminosities of the brightest red-giant stars…
New systematic classification of cosmological models of the present Universe is introduced. After making the comparison of these models with all existing observational data three viable models remain: the cold dark matter model with the…
James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) observations since its launch have shown us that there could be very massive and very large galaxies, as well as massive quasars very early in the history of the universe, conflicting expectations of the…
The standard cosmological model, now strongly constrained by direct observation at early epochs, is very successful in describing the structure of the evolved universe on large and intermediate scales. Unfortunately, serious contradictions…
Luminosities and tidal radii of globular clusters have been used to estimate the perigalactic distances P of well-observed Galactic globulars that do not have collapsed cores. It is found that the cluster metallicity [Fe/H] correlates…
We determine the density parameters $\Omega_m$ of gravitating matter and $\Omega_{\Lambda}$ of vacuum energy, by making a $\chi^2$ fit to nine independent astrophysical constraints. Paying rigorous attention to statistical detail, we find…
Clusters of galaxies are self-gravitating systems of mass ~10^14-10^15 Msun. They consist of dark matter (~80 %), hot diffuse intracluster plasma (< 20 %) and a small fraction of stars, dust, and cold gas, mostly locked in galaxies. In most…
The ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Treasury program designed to provide a new large, deep and homogeneous photometric database. Based on observations from this program, we have measured precise…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
A galaxy's orientation is one of its most basic observable properties. Astronomers once assumed that galaxies are randomly oriented in space, however it is now clear that some have preferred orientations with respect to their surroundings.…
Properties of 53 globular cluster systems are investigated. Strong correlations are found between parent galaxy luminosity and both the slope of the radial density profile for clusters and the width of the cluster color (metallicity)…
Observational constraints to a large class of decaying vacuum cosmologies are derived using the angular size data of compact radio sources and the latest age estimates of globular clusters. For this class of deflationary $\Lambda(t)$…
One hundred years ago we did not know how stars generate energy, the age of the Universe was thought to be only millions of years, and our Milky Way galaxy was the only galaxy known. Today, we know that we live in an evolving and expanding…
We present a new algorithm that can reconstruct the full distributions of metric components within the class of spherically symmetric dust universes that may include a cosmological constant. The algorithm is capable of confronting this…
A short story of dark matter as an example of a scientific revolution is given. The characteristics of stellar populations are compared with those of dark halos. The mean mass-to-luminosity ratio of stellar populations is found to be 4 in…