Browsing: White Dwarf

A white dwarf is a small, dense stellar remnant left after a star like our Sun has exhausted most of its nuclear fuel and expelled its outer layers. Typically about the size of Earth but containing the mass of about half to 1.4 times that of the Sun, white dwarfs represent the final evolutionary state of stars that do not have sufficient mass to continue nuclear fusion into heavier elements, a fate shared by over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way. These stellar remnants are incredibly dense, with their material compressed to a quantum state known as electron degenerate matter. White dwarfs no longer undergo fusion reactions, so they do not generate new energy; instead, they emit only residual thermal energy, slowly cooling over billions of years. The ultimate fate of a white dwarf is to cool and dim, eventually becoming a black dwarf — a theoretical endpoint when it no longer emits significant heat or light.