What is a White dwarf?


A white dwarf is a dwarf star and the 'white' that was added to its name was just because, the few dwarfs that were found during their discovery appeared white--I'm not kidding, that's true.

Do you know how dense a typical white dwarf can get?

Well, if you don't, I can answer it for you: they appears in the size of our earth containing almost the entire mass of our sun. That's too much right?

Because of their smaller size and heavier mass these stars are extremely denser and compact objects having the average density approaching 1,000,000 times that of water.

To help you understand the way in which a normal star turns in to a compact white dwarf, let me explain to you the typical life cycle of a typical star.


A star takes birth when large amounts of near by gaseous particles--hydrogen atoms--attracted towards each other through the gravitational force, gets collided and coalesce--after much needed collisions--with each other to produce large quantities of heat along with some heavier compounds. The heat that got released during this process is much like a controlled hydrogen explosion, and is in fact responsible for the star to shine so brightly up in the space.

This heat got one more responsibility to look after: helping the star by restricting the sudden catastrophic gravitational collapse and thus maintaining a slow contraction process . Eventually there comes a stage where the star attains a perfect balance between the gravitational force, that which tries to contract the star even further, and the force that was caused by the heat energy, that which tries to explode the star out. And thus the star remains stable until one of its forces gets weaker, and we all know that it can't be the eternal gravitational force that gets weaker. The contraction process starts again and now the star reaches a stage where it was left with no fuel to burn anymore.

Now, what you think is gonna help the star from the catastrophic gravitational collapse??
--earlier it was stopped by the heat energy.

Well, its the outward pressure that was generated due to the repulsions between the sub atomic particles--electrons or neutrons or protons.

Here, the star that which attained balance through the repulsions between electrons is our required 'White dwarf' and the one that was supported by neutron repulsions is named as a 'Neutron star'

Now, if you still got a doubt like: what's gonna happen to our star if the repulsions that were supposed to stop the gravitational collapse can't equal the massive gravitational force?

Yeah, that's a good doubt and it was first occurred to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a well known physicist, and I'm gonna explain that in my next post.

And please do comment here if you got anything to say..thanks :)

Comments

21 Responses to “What is a White dwarf?”

Anonymous said...
December 6, 2010 at 4:03 AM

That's a very interesting post and I guess ur next one going to be on blackholes??

Anonymous said...
November 23, 2011 at 2:38 AM

.l79ol

Anonymous said...
November 23, 2011 at 2:40 AM

this had really healped me for my assignment you know.

Anonymous said...
January 16, 2012 at 8:35 PM

This might just be the best article on the Internet. All I can say is WOW. I never thought I would learn so much about the universe. Astrology truly is a fasinating subject.

Anonymous said...
December 16, 2012 at 9:52 PM

Awesome Post

-madhu

Anonymous said...
March 21, 2013 at 5:44 AM

Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and
wished to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your
blog posts. In any case I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again very soon!

Check out my weblog - cardsharing canalsat

Anonymous said...
March 30, 2013 at 2:25 AM

Τhe lеssonѕ агe taught run ads on the
situation bеcause many parentѕ dіd not Neеd their children
exposed to aԁs. Aѕ the ρlayеrs Dегive, Get and rise levels they by children, regular the
teenаgers and function exit indivіԁuals are adԁіcteԁ to
such games.

Here is my web-ѕite ... getsmarq.com

June 8, 2015 at 5:35 AM

Thanks for Wonderful article! I get more knowledge here...
Keep sharing wonderful article guys!

AstroNews

tonyon said...
March 14, 2017 at 5:47 AM
This comment has been removed by the author.
tonyon said...
March 15, 2017 at 9:03 AM
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...
June 2, 2019 at 5:52 PM

Your blog is nice but i also have the same type of blog check it out www.astrophysicist-club.com

Unknown said...
August 27, 2020 at 10:58 AM

موقع كويت 24 ساعة هو افضل موقع اخباري عربي متخصص في اخبار دولة الكويت والخليج العربي والعالم بأكمله، تابع معنا اخر اخبار الكويت لحظة بلحظة.
Kuwait Blog

Unknown said...
September 7, 2020 at 2:16 PM

Company descriptions :-
فني تكييف الكويت تقدم لكم جميع خدمات فني تكييف ٢٤ ساعه و تصليح مكيفات و فني تكييف مركزي هندي
، صيانة تكييف مركزي و تصليح تكييف مركزي و تصليح وحدات تكييف
تركيب تكييف و كمبروسرات جديد و مستامل جميع مناطق بالكويت
فني تكييف مركزي

Anonymous said...
October 1, 2020 at 3:21 AM

To enjoy more about universe visit my blog
treasureofuniverse.blogspot.com

Ishq said...
April 12, 2021 at 11:32 AM

الطريقة التي تكتب بها ، أنت مدون محترف حقًا. فني تكييف

Post a Comment

Thanks for you decided to share something :)