STAR clusters around the Milky Way are being ripped apart by the Galaxy’s gravity. It’s bad news for the clusters, but good news for Earthbound astronomers because it helps explain where our Galaxy’s dark matter came from.
When a small object passes near to a larger one in space it experiences a stretching force because its near side feels the large object’s gravity more strongly than its far side. Astronomers have often wondered if these “tidal forces” could affect entire clusters of stars.
Now Michael Odenkirchen and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, have…
