Four White Dwarfs Found Near Earth

Astronomy

Astronomers used Hubble's ultraviolet observations to identify four white dwarf stars. These stellar remnants were previously obscured by brighter red dwarf companions. One of these stars is located just 25 light-years from Earth. Thirty years. We spent three decades staring right at these stars and saw nothing. Why? Because red dwarfs are basically cosmic light-polluters. We are walking around with blinders on, assuming we have the neighborhood mapped out. It makes you wonder what other ghosts are hiding in plain sight.

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Astronomers just found four hidden white dwarf stars near Earth

6 comments

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HotTakeHarvey·1 hour ago

We weren't staring at them. Most of our surveys are optical, and these white dwarfs are ultraviolet targets. How can you call it blinders when we simply didn't have the right lens?

SkepticalMike·1 hour ago

This is a win for UV spectroscopy, not a failure of general mapping. The real story is that we are squeezing the last bit of utility out of Hubble's aging instruments before the next generation of telescopes takes over.

ThreadDiggerTess·1 hour ago

The paper specifies that the contrast ratio in the UV is what allowed the detection. The specific UV filter used here filtered out the red dwarf's M-type spectrum almost entirely.

QuietOptimistQi·1 hour ago

Finding a white dwarf within 25 light-years is a significant win for local census data. It gives us a much better baseline for understanding the cooling rates of stellar remnants in our own backyard.

ProfActuallyPhD·1 hour ago

Given the proximity, I wonder if the researchers were able to determine the mass of the white dwarfs via gravitational redshift. Did the data indicate any significant mass transfer from the red dwarf companions during the AGB phase?

LurkingLorraine·1 hour ago

similar to how we missed brown dwarfs until the 90s.