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Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!richk
From: richk@tektronix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: 'Births of stars and their orbits'
Message-ID: <1181@tektronix.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 23:00:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: tektroni.1181
Posted: Mon Jun 13 23:00:16 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 05:22:31 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 27

Last nights COSMOS reminded me of a question I've had for some time:

It was stated that stars are born in groups.  Later they move off into
seperate orbits. Thus, the suns siblings could well be on the other
side of the galaxy from us.

It seems to me that they would tend to stay together rather than move
well away from each other. If they were all born from the same gas cloud,
they should all have about the same motion as the cloud had around the
center of the galaxy. (since their distribution covers a very small
amount of space vs the size of the cloud's orbit.) I think their
gravitational attraction would also tend to keep them together.

What is it that spreads these stars out?  Close encounters with other
stars?  That doesn't seem too likely.  There would have to a lot of
encounters to spread them all out.  Internal encounters seem to be too
limited in nature to quickly disorganize the cluster.  Maybe close
encounters with demented astronmers?  All stars hate each other?
Anyone out there know the real reason?

Richard

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