Talk:Blue straggler

New image?

Maybe here is a better image recently released, it more clearly shows the blue color of the stars than the current image: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/384605main_ero_omega_centauri_full_full.jpg

Should the image in the article be replaced? Tinwelint (talk) 06:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a new image, though not the one you suggested. If you could give me some more information about the image you suggested, I could add that too, but I did not know all of the details. James McBride (talk) 01:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just have to make a comment here. In both of those HST photos the blue stars are horizontal branch (HB) stars and NOT blue stragglers. Blue stragglers are concentrated in the core of the cluster and are about 10 times (3 mags) dimmer than the blue stars that are apparent in these images. So I'm not sure how you fix this problem, but APOD itself made the same mistake of claiming the blue stars in the image to be blue stragglers.... they aren't, they are Horizontal Branch Stars. There are blue stragglers in the core in the images, where you can squint and see them (they aren't actually 'blue' either! They are white-ish off-blue). I will fix the caption for this, but perhaps a more exacting image is needed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.178.238.145 (talk) 22:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

German article error

The German language page for this topic contains a gross error, namely that blue stragglers have more than 50 solar masses.

The reason I am posting here is that my login doesn't work on the German side. Vegasprof 10:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Commentary

According to the article, field stars may be considered blue stragglers too if they fit the criteria.

I wonder if Regulus may be considered a blue straggler star as it is a B type star with a potential white dwarf companion that is over a billion years old, and yet it has only recently begun to run low on hydrogen, becoming a subgiant. This hints towards a recent mass transfer between the two objects. Based on the given theory of origin of blue straggler stars, could Regulus be considered one? Pancakes321 (talk) 10:38, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has been considered to be a field blue straggler (eg. [1]), but the term is somewhat meaningless because the star is relatively normal for its current mass, even though it may have gained some mass from the companion in the past. Lithopsian (talk) 15:08, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating. Pancakes321 (talk) 01:48, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]