White Dwarfs: The Remnants of Stars

White dwarfs are the dense, Earth-sized remnants of medium-sized stars like our Sun.
They form after stars shed their outer layers, leaving behind a hot, compact core.
A white dwarf can pack a Sun’s worth of mass into a sphere the size of Earth.
Gravity is so intense that a teaspoon of white dwarf matter would weigh tons.
They no longer fuse elements; instead, they slowly cool and fade over billions of years.
White dwarfs shine with leftover thermal energy from their former lives as stars.
Many are found in binary systems, sometimes drawing matter from a companion star.
When overloaded with mass, they can explode as Type Ia supernovae, crucial for measuring cosmic distances.
Over unimaginable timescales, white dwarfs may cool into “black dwarfs”—dark, cold stellar corpses.
Our Sun is destined to become a white dwarf after its red giant phase.