Faint stars may appear blue. Some blue stars are called "blue stragglers". This photograph was taken with the Hubble telescope.
Click on image for full size
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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