Blue Straggler Stars: Early Observations that Failed to Solve the Problem

Abstract

In this chapter, I describe early ideas on blue stragglers, and various observations (some published, some not) that promised but failed to resolve the question of their origin. I review the data and ideas that were circulating from Allan Sandage's original discovery in 1953 of "anomalous blue stars" in the globular cluster M3, up until about 1992, when what seems to have been the only previous meeting devoted to Blue Straggler Stars (BSSs) was held at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

arXiv commentChapter 2, in Ecology of Blue Straggler Stars, H.M.J. Boffin, G. Carraro & G. Beccari (Eds), Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Springer

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Hubble Space Telescope proper motion (HSTPROMO) catalogs of Galactic globular clusters. IV. Kinematic profiles and average masses of blue straggler stars
• UOCS.VI. UVIT/AstroSat detection of low-mass white dwarf companions to 4 more blue stragglers in M67
• UVIT/ASTROSAT studies of Blue Straggler stars and post-mass transfer systems in star clusters: Detection of one more blue lurker in M67
• Evolutionary history of four binary blue stragglers from the globular clusters ωCen, M55, 47 Tuc and NGC 6752