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White Dwarf Star Spirals
Photograph courtesy NASA/Tod Strohmayer (GSFC)/Dana Berry (Chandra X-Ray Observatory)
About 1,600 light-years away, two dense white dwarfs in the J0806 binary star system orbit each other once every 321 seconds. When they reach the end of their long evolutions, smaller stars typically become white dwarfs.
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Sirius and Sirius B
Photograph courtesy NASA/ESA/H. Bond (STScl)/M. Barstow (University of Leicester)
The brightest star in the nighttime sky, Sirius, or the Dog Star, greatly outshines its white dwarf companion, Sirius B. At 8.6 light-years away, Sirius B is the nearest known white dwarf star to Earth.
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White Dwarfs
Photograph courtesy HubbleSite
Ancient white dwarf stars shine in the Milky Way galaxy. Stars like our sun fuse hydrogen in their cores into helium. White dwarfs are stars that have burned up all of the hydrogen they once used as nuclear fuel.
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