white dwarf star
1
5.9
- noun
- /waɪt dwɔrf stɑr/
- Specialized
:
estrella enana blanca
- Thus far, the identified classes of gamma-ray sources in our galaxy are associated in some way with endpoints of stellar evolution: supernova remnants, white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes.
What it is, is that was a white dwarf star, OK, that was in orbit essentially around a black hole.
- What it is, is that was a white dwarf star, OK, that was in orbit essentially around a black hole.
Examples
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After exhausting its nuclear fuel, a medium-sized star will eventually become a white dwarf star.
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New observations have shown that it is likely that a very rare pair of white dwarf stars lies at the heart of this object.
Blog text (22) -
That is the density of a white dwarf star, approximately the density of what the sun will be on death.
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Some acquaintances of mine in the United Kingdom have discovered two white dwarf stars that have a lot of oxygen in their atmospheres.
Blog text (27) -
A nova occurs in a binary star system in which gas from a normal star accretes onto the surface of its companion white dwarf star.
Academic text (1994) -
The reason Sirius B, a white dwarf star, is hotter but fainter than its larger main sequence sibling is that it is incredibly small, only the size of the Earth, but with the mass of the Sun.
Academic text (1999) -
This mosaic, 400 light-years high, reveals accumulations of hot gas and many white dwarf stars and X-ray binaries.
Academic text (2002) -
A white dwarf star is formed when a star with insufficient mass exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses.
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The core of a low-mass star that has run out of fuel is referred to as a white dwarf star.
Synonyms
5
7.5
A small, very dense star that remains after a star uses its fuel and glows with leftover heat
How Dense
- Specialized
162
5.1
- Specialized
14
7.4
- Specialized
1
5.9
- Specialized
3
6.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'white', 'dwarf' and 'star' will transparently get the basic idea of a small (dwarf) star that is white in appearance, since the constituents compose in a straightforward way and similar compounds exist cross-linguistically. However, the full technical sense — a very dense, faint remnant core resulting from stellar evolution — is specialized domain knowledge not recoverable from the parts alone, so the expression is only partially predictable.
Etymology
White dwarf star gets its name from how it looks: it is a very small, very heavy star that glows white because it is the hot leftover core after a star has 'burned out' its fuel. That's why the words white and dwarf help us remember it is a small, fading leftover of a once larger star.