Faint stars may appear blue. Some blue stars are called "blue stragglers". This photograph was taken with the Hubble telescope.
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NASA

Blue Stars Cheer-up Astronomers
News story originally written on November 3, 1997

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to study a different kind of star called a blue straggler. Blue stragglers are found in globular clusters. They are different because they are bigger and look like they are a lot younger than the other stars in the cluster.

Astronomers have wondered how these stars form. One theory says that two different stars happened to collide in the cluster and form a new star. Pictures from the HST support a second theory. The second theory says that two stars in a binary system merge into one. This new star is what we see as a blue straggler.

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