The Fate of the Stars
All scenes › Chapter 4 A Sun-like star: white dwarf
White dwarf
Left at the size of Earth, slowly cooling
View in 3DA small white ember
In the middle of the scattered gas, a small white star is left behind. It is a white dwarf. About 0.6 times the Sun’s mass is packed into something the size of Earth, so one teaspoon weighs about 6.6 tonnes. It no longer uses any fuel. It shines with its leftover heat and cools very slowly.
Why?Electrons resist being pushed into an even smaller space, and that resistance holds up the star’s weight. So it does not collapse any further.
Learn moreA white dwarf takes much longer to cool completely than the universe’s present age (about 13.8 billion years). So scientists think there are no fully cooled “black dwarfs” anywhere yet. Even Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, has a white dwarf beside it.
- When
- Slowly cooling
- Star we are watching
- White dwarf
- Size · state
- About the size of Earth · 0.6 times the Sun’s mass
Read more
Wikipedia: White dwarf · Wikipedia: Sirius
More in the series
Lifetimes and sizes are typical values from models of how stars change (approximate). The black hole horizon size and the teaspoon masses are calculated with official constants. Sizes, distances and speeds in the 3D view are a rough sketch.