Understanding White Dwarf Stars: A Stellar Phenomenon

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White dwarf stars are the remnants of burned-out stars, with cores composed of carbon and oxygen. They have various sizes and densities, with the mass of the sun but a radius similar to Earth. These celestial objects showcase the fascinating evolution and gravitational forces in the universe.

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White Dwarf Stars BY RADION SARBINOV 09/17/21

Introduction White dwarfs are basically the burned- out cores of stars. The central region of a typical white dwarf is composed of a mixture of carbon and oxygen being surrounded by a thin envelope of helium as well as an even thinner layer of hydrogen

Where a star winds up toward the finish of its life relies upon the mass it was brought into the world with. Stars that have a ton of mass might take their lives as black holes or neutron stars. A low or medium mass star (with mass not exactly multiple times the mass of our Sun) will turn into a white dwarf. The white dwarf is usually as big as the sun, just bigger than the earth.

The Sun The Sun is a star that will one day become a white dwarf and once it burns off all its hydrogen fuel it expands to become a red giant. After the outward pressure from the fusion reaction stops the star expels most of its outer material and creates a planetary nebula what remains is the core of the star which becomes a very hot white dwarf with a temperature over 100000 kelvin. Since there s no fusion reaction happening anymore (unless it is accreting matter from a nearby star the white dwarf cools and becomes invisible for the next billion of years!

White dwarfs contain about the mass of the sun but have roughly the radius of earth and that s why they are one the densest objects in space. To put that in perspective a spoon of a white dwarf would weigh up to 100 tons.

According to NASA, the gravity on the surface of a white dwarf is about 350,000 times that of gravity on earth. This means that a 100-pound person earth would weigh about 32 million pounds on the surface of a white dwarf.

When a white dwarf stops radiating and becomes a cold stellar remnant it becomes a black dwarf Since the time required for a white dwarf to reach this state is calculated to be longer than the current age of the universe (13.8 billion years old) no black dwarfs are expected to exist in the universe now. If a white dwarf is apart of a binary system, it may be able to pull material from its companion onto its surface. Thus, the added mass could cause it to collapse into a much denser neutron star or even increase its temperature and trigger a runaway reaction that detonates into a violent supernova that destroys the white dwarf.