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White Dwarf Cooling

White dwarfs are stellar corpses supported by electron degeneracy pressure. With no fusion, they slowly cool over billions of years, transitioning from blue-white to red, eventually becoming invisible "black dwarfs."

Age:0 Gyr
Temperature:100,000 K
Luminosity:1000 L☉
Mass:0.6 M☉
Radius:0.009 R☉
Density:10⁶ g/cm³

Electron Degeneracy

Unlike normal stars, white dwarfs are held up by quantum mechanical pressure from tightly packed electrons obeying the Pauli exclusion principle. This prevents further gravitational collapse.

Chandrasekhar Limit: 1.4 M☉

Core Composition

C
O

Cooling Curve

Known White Dwarfs

Newly Formed ~100,000 K
Sirius B 25,000 K
40 Eri B 12,000 K
Ancient WD ~4,000 K