How does the typical star count in an open cluster compare to that of a globular cluster?
Answer
Dozens to a few thousand members
The scale of star membership differs dramatically between the two cluster types. Open clusters possess a modest number of stars, ranging from just a few dozen up to a few thousand members dispersed across a relatively sparse volume of space. This contrasts sharply with globular clusters, which are behemoths containing hundreds of thousands to millions of stars packed tightly into a relatively small spherical volume, indicating vastly different formation scales and gravitational binding mechanisms.
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