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A white dwarf is the core of a star after death: a hot ball the size of Earth, cools forever.

History

The first white dwarf — Sirius B — was discovered by Alvan Clark in 1862. Chandrasekhar established their mass limit in 1931.

How it works

Gravity tries to squeeze the stellar corpse, but electron repulsion holds its shape, like a spring.

💡 A spoonful of white dwarf material weighs as much as an elephant.
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Scientists
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Related tags
globular clustergravityphotometryspectroscopystellar evolutionsupernova
Laws
Fermi–Dirac statisticsChandrasekhar limit

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