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The metal-rich white dwarf WD 1145+017 is the first white dwarf observed with a disintegrating minor planet that transits the star. [ 175 ] [ 176 ] The disintegration of the planetesimal generates a debris cloud that passes in front of the star every 4.5 hours, causing a 5-minute-long fade in the star's optical brightness. [ 176 ]
Alvan Graham Clark was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the son of Alvan Clark, founder of Alvan Clark & Sons. [1]On January 31, 1862, while testing a new 18.5-inch (470 mm) aperture great refractor telescope in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Clark made the first ever observation of a white dwarf star.
Van Maanen's star is also the nearest solitary white dwarf [5] First white dwarf with a planet WD B1620−26: 2003 PSR B1620-26 b (planet) This planet is a circumbinary planet, which circles both stars in the PSR B1620-26 system [6] [7] First singular white dwarf with a transiting object WD 1145+017: 2015 Known object is a disintegrating ...
This is evident from the pollution of the white dwarf atmosphere with metals, especially the pollution with nitrogen. WD 1425+540 is the first white dwarf with detected nitrogen. [5] [6] The white dwarf has a K-dwarf companion called G200-40, about 40 arcseconds away. [5] The white dwarf nature of the object was discovered by Greenstein in 1974 ...
Astronomers have discovered a white dwarf star, or the burnt core of a dead star, that has two completely different faces. One is made of hydrogen, while the other is made of helium.
1910 – the spectrum of 40 Eridani B is observed, making it the first confirmed white dwarf. 1914 – Walter Sydney Adams determines an incredibly high density for Sirius B. 1926 – Ralph Fowler uses Fermi–Dirac statistics to explain white dwarf stars. 1930 – Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar discovers the white dwarf maximum mass limit.
The chemical composition of the white dwarf depends upon its mass. A star that has a mass of about 8-12 solar masses will ignite carbon fusion to form magnesium, neon, and smaller amounts of other elements, resulting in a white dwarf composed chiefly of oxygen, neon, and magnesium, provided that it can lose enough mass to get below the ...
Eddington predicted that dwarf stars remain in an essentially static position on the main sequence for most of their lives. In the 1930s and 1940s, with an understanding of hydrogen fusion, came an evidence-backed theory of evolution to red giants following which were speculated cases of explosion and implosion of the remnants to white dwarfs.