COLLECTION NAME:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Record
Title:
White Dwarf Stars Cool
Explanation:
Diminutive by stellar standards [ http://zebu.uoregon… ], white dwarf stars are also intensely hot [ http://antwrp.gsfc.… ] ... but they are cooling. No longer do their interior nuclear fires burn [ http://fusedweb.ppp… ], so they will continue to cool until they fade away. This Hubble Space Telescope image [ http://oposite.stsc… ] covers a small region near the center of a globular cluster [ http://antwrp.gsfc.… ] known as M4. Here, researchers have discovered a large concentration of white dwarf stars [ http://plabpc.csust… ] (circled above). This was expected - low mass stars, including the Sun, are believed to evolve [ http://plabpc.csust… ] to the white dwarf stage. Studying how these stars cool could lead [ http://oposite.stsc… ] to a better understanding of their ages, of the age of their parent globular cluster, and even the age of our universe!
keyword:
stars
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_what:
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap971102
