What characterizes the dominant stellar population found in ancient Globular Clusters?
Answer
Smaller, cooler, longer-lived stars such as red giants
Globular Clusters are extremely old, dating back 8 to 13 billion years. Because such vast amounts of time have passed, the most massive and hottest stars that were present at the cluster's formation have already completed their lives, either exploding as supernovae or evolving into remnants like white dwarfs. What remains is a population dominated by the stars that burn their fuel slowly—the lower-mass, cooler stars, including red giants, which have much longer inherent lifetimes. This contrasts sharply with young Open Clusters, which are often still populated by their initial short-lived, bright blue members.
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