Using Color-Magnitude Diagrams & Isochrones to Determine Ages of Globular Clusters

Nalu Clemons, Kenneth Manegdeg, Luka Masuda
Mentors: Marielle Delacruz & Kaimi Kahihikolo (UH Manoa BS Astrophysics program)
Globular clusters (GC) appear to have formed shortly after the Big Bang, so they are used by astronomers to investigate how the universe was long ago.  Color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) can be used to determine the properties of GCs, including age and metallicity.  For this project, we constructed CMDs for three GCs using blue and infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope.  CMD turnoff points were overlaid with isochrones (from Dartmouth) to estimate the age of each target.  By applying isochrone fitting and χ2 statistics, we have measured the ages of globular clusters M3, M54, and M80.