Observational hints of a real age spread in the young LMC star cluster NGC 1971

Abstract

We report the serendipitous young Large Magellanic Cloud cluster, NGC 1971, exhibits an extended main-sequence turnoff (eMSTO) possibly originated by mostly a real age spread. We used CT1 Washington photometry to produce a colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) with the fiducial cluster features. From its eMSTO, we estimated an age spread of ~ 170 Myr (observed age range 100-280 Myr), once observational errors, stellar binarity, overall metalicity variations and stellar rotation effects were subtracted in quadrature from the observed age width.

5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Detection of a diffuse extended halo-like structure around 47 Tuc
• Nearly coeval intermediate-age Milky Way star clusters at very different dynamics evolutionary stages
• The extended Main-Sequence Turnoff of the Milky Way open cluster Collinder 347
• The real population of star clusters in the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Stellar density distribution along the minor axis of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Multiple populations of Hbeta emission line stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud cluster NGC1971