white dwarfs

Artwork of a pulsar emitting beams of energy as it orbits a white dwarf; the warping of spacetime is depicted as the change in an imaginary grid around them. The pulsar is not to scale; the white dwarf is hundreds of times larger. ESO/L. Calçada
A dead star's spin is dragging the fabric of spacetime along with it
Phil Plait
Feb 4, 2020
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Tag: Bad Astronomy
Tag: Supernova
Tag: Gravity
Tag: Black Holes
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A white dwarf is cooking a giant planet and slowly eating it
Phil Plait
Dec 5, 2019
Artwork depicting a white dwarf evaporating a close-orbiting giant planet, with some of that material forming a disk around the dead star. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
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The most compact accreting binary X-ray millisecond pulsar ever!
Phil Plait
Jun 20, 2019
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Artwork depicting a millisecond pulsar, sped up to phenomenal rotation rates by material it's eating from its companion star. Credit: NASA / GSFC SVS / Dana Berry
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Making a supernova the hard way: Tossing a white dwarf into a black hole
Phil Plait
May 30, 2019
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Artist’s impression of a white dwarf having matter siphoned off by a black hole. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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Gorgeousness in death
Phil Plait
Feb 15, 2019
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The planetary nebula Abell 36, the glowing gas thrown off by a nearby dying star. Credit: ESO
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The sun is destined to turn into a gargantuan crystal ball after it dies
Elizabeth Rayne
Jan 11, 2019
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ESA image of a crystallized white dwarf
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A dead star is eating its planets
Phil Plait
Jul 25, 2018
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Artwork depicting a white dwarf that’s destroyed its inner planets, which are now raining down on it. Credit: Jon Lomberg / Gemini Observatory
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Did our first known interstellar visitor come from a dead star?
Phil Plait
Jan 4, 2018
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Artwork depicting what ‘Oumuamua might look like; observations indicate it’s highly elongated. But where did it come from? Credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser
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The first evidence of planets around another star was found in… 1917?
Phil Plait
Nov 6, 2017
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An artist’s rendering of a comet (which is very similar to an asteroid) getting torn apart near a white dwarf. Many white dwarfs have rings of dust around them as well, more evidence of a planetary system orbiting them. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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