(Solved): In which component(s) of the Milky Way are open clusters located (bulge, disk, halo)? How about glo ...

In which component(s) of the Milky Way are open clusters located (bulge, disk, halo)? How about globular clusters? The galaxy in which we live is called the Milky Way galaxy. The pictures below show what we think it would look like if we could see from the outsid based on all the information we have on its structure. Some of the above images also show our location within the Malky Way. Where we are in the galaxy determines what we see. Note that the Milky Way consists of three main structural components: the bulge, the disk and the halo. The disk is a large, thin, structure (you studied the multi-wavelength emission from the disk in the Astro. Photometry a nd Imaging lab). The bulge and the halo, while not really spherical, are much thicker structures. Most of the mass of the MIky Way; however, is in the mysterious Dark Matter. We know it's there because without it, the galaxy would fly apart given the speed with which everything is orbiting, but we don't know much about its nature. In this lab you have seen how to find the ages and distances to clusters. This is crucial information for understanding the structure and history of the Milky Way. The globular clusters are found to be very old (11-13 billion years) and rather distant. The open clusters have a range of ages but none is as old as the globular clusters. To investigate further how these and other components of the Milky Way are distributed, explore with this anelle. Drag with the mouse to view the Galaxy from different angles, including on edge. Try turning on and off the various components (some of which we have not yet discussed) to see how they aredistributed. Check out the location of the different types of star clusters relative to the disk of the galaxy (note that "Population I" and "Population li" stars are essentially fust another name for disk and halo stars).