On the Absence of Flat Star Clusters

Phillip Helbig

The Observatory, 142, 1286, 12–13 (February 2022)


Taylor has asked the question why there are no flat star clusters. A useful starting point might be a paper by the late, great Donald Lynden-Bell, "Can Spherical Clusters Rotate?", in which he breaks with the tradition that the answer is always "no" if there is a question mark in the title and points out that a spherical cluster of mass points may rotate without becoming oblate. Gaia results indicate that at least some globular clusters rotate, but with no evidence of a link between rotation and flattening.


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