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A typical white dwarf has a density of between 10 4 and 10 7 g/cm 3. White dwarfs are composed of one of the densest forms of matter known, surpassed only by other compact stars such as neutron stars and the hypothetical quark stars. [30] [31] White dwarfs were found to be extremely dense soon after their discovery.
This fate may befall carbon–oxygen white dwarfs that accrete matter from a companion giant star, leading to a steadily increasing mass. As the white dwarf's mass approaches the Chandrasekhar limit, its central density increases, and, as a result of compressional heating, its temperature also increases.
In astrophysics, Chandrasekhar's white dwarf equation is an initial value ordinary differential equation introduced by the Indian American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, [1] in his study of the gravitational potential of completely degenerate white dwarf stars. The equation reads as [2]
Like other white dwarfs, it is a very dense star: its mass has been estimated to be about 67% of the Sun's, [28] yet it has only 1% of the Sun's radius (1.23 times the Earth's radius) [8] [a] The outer atmosphere has a temperature of approximately 6,110 K, [28] which is relatively cool for a white dwarf. As all white dwarfs steadily radiate ...
In astronomy, the term compact object (or compact star) refers collectively to white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. It could also include exotic stars if such hypothetical, dense bodies are confirmed to exist. All compact objects have a high mass relative to their radius, giving them a very high density, compared to ordinary atomic matter.
The result is a star with a diameter on the order of a thousandth that of a white dwarf. The properties of neutron matter set an upper limit to the mass of a neutron star, the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, which is analogous to the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarf stars.
Like all white dwarfs, it is incredibly dense, packing about 70% of the sun's mass into an Earth-sized object. ... This white dwarf started its life as a star about twice the sun's mass, living a ...
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram showing the location of main sequence dwarf stars and white dwarfs. A dwarf star is a star of relatively small size and low luminosity. Most main sequence stars are dwarf stars. The meaning of the word "dwarf" was later extended to some star-sized objects that are not stars, and compact stellar remnants that ...