White+Dwarfs+2A

__**White Dwarfs**__

White Dwarfs are the remains of low mass and medium mass stars. 1) When a star dies it becomes one of three things - Neutron Stars - Black holes - White Dwarfs

A new white dwarfs forming.

Denisties this great only happen if the electrons are displaced inward from their regular orbits, around an atoms nucleus, this allows the atoms to take up less space than usual. Material in this state is called degenerate matter.

A white Dwarfs mass is comparable to the Sun as it's volume is comparable to Earth, they are very dense. The faint luminositity comes from emission of stored heat. 6% of all stars are white dwarfs. The white dwarf was first found in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell and wasn't actually refered as a white dwarf untill 1922.

Though it has the name white dwarfs, in fact not all of them are actaully white. The first few that were discovered were indeed white though with the typical temperature of 10,000 K.


 * [[image:http://physics1.howard.edu/School/astro/HRdiagram.jpg width="645" height="498" caption="external image HRdiagram.jpg"]] ||  || [[image:http://nahsess.wikispaces.com/s/rte/images/bold.gif width="52" height="23" caption="Bold"]] ||

On the Hertz Russell diagram the white dwarfs are mainly located in the O,B section of the spectoral class. This means they are among the hottest stars but they also have the faintest luminosity.