Formation
Several explanations have been put forth to explain the existence of blue stragglers. The simplest is that blue stragglers formed later than the rest of the stars in the cluster, but evidence for this is limited. Another simple proposal is that blue stragglers are either field stars which are not actually members of the clusters to which they seem to belong, or are field stars which were captured by the cluster. This too seems unlikely, as blue stragglers often reside at the very center of the clusters to which they belong. Another theory is that blue stragglers are the result of stars that come too close to another star or similar mass object and collide.
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