“NGC 1651 is the best example found to date of a truly single-age stellar population,” said Richard de Grijs, a faculty member at KIAA involved in the study. “We have since identified a handful of other middle-aged clusters that appear to show similar features.”
The research suggests that, for middle-aged clusters at least, today’s conventional wisdom may be wrong and it might be common for all stars in a single cluster to be of approximately the same age.
A decade ago, astronomers actually thought that the stars within any cluster should all be about the same age, but that idea fell out of favor when clear evidence of the presence of stars of different ages within a single cluster was discovered, at least for the oldest and most populous clusters in our Milky Way. Based on today’s Nature paper, a reverse shift looks necessary.
Read the full story from the Kavli Foundation