White Dwarfs Aren’t Just White. Scientists Discover Dying Stars Turning Pink and Green
Source: Wired ·
Astronomers find that a white dwarf’s density and the kind of material it absorbed from its surroundings can produce a rainbow of shades in the star’s atmosphere.
From the source
The realm of stars resembles a fairy tale. In it, we find giants, supergiants, and also many dwarfs. Rather like the flames of a fire, most stars’ colors are based on temperature. Cooler stars look orange, sun-like stars appear white, and the hottest ones shine light blue. However, there are exceptions, and astronomers have recently discovered some among the class of stars known as white dwarfs . At the end of their lives , stars with a mass similar to the sun expand and turn into red giants. Subsequently, they shed their gaseous envelope , creating a planetary nebula that we can admire through telescopes. In place of the star, a white dwarf remains—a highly condensed object the approximate volume of the Earth but the mass of the sun. Initially, white dwarfs have extremely high temperatures, and so the first ones discovered shone from white to light blue. That’s how they got their name. But according to a new study published in the journal RAS Techniques and Instruments , the world…