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by LeifCarrotson 1233 days ago
Because the names were determined by when they found those groups of stars, rather than when the stars they found were formed. They only later realized that their distinct groupings based on observed metal content were caused by stellar formation processes.

Regrettably, the stars didn't show up in their telescopes with labels and histories attached.

1 comments

Same problem with categorizing star luminosity... I wish we could make a shift to these cumbersome categories, but cultural inertia is tough to overcome
Yeah, seeing stars with negative luminosity seems weird. Negative? Are they removing light? =) Scales are fun when the index is arbitrary to the data.