• Question: what happens to stars once they turn to black dwarves?

    Asked by applepie7 to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 9 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      Nice question!

      So a black dwarf is what happens when a white dwarf has been around for so long that it’s cooled down to almost nothing. That takes a really really long time, longer than the age of the Universe so we don’t think any actually exist yet.

      If they did exist they’d be really hard to see because they’re black, and so is empty space! Once a star is a white dwarf it will do pretty much nothing since it’s not burning gas any more, so it’ll just sit there forever… maybe the only thing that could ever happen to it would be to run into another star, but space is big so that’s very unlikely.

      g

    • Photo: Amy Tyndall

      Amy Tyndall answered on 10 Mar 2013:

      A star that sits and space and doesn’t shine for the rest of eternity? Quite possibly the saddest story in astronomy!! 🙁

    • Photo: Shawn Domagal-Goldman

      Shawn Domagal-Goldman answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      What Grant said!

      Amy, that also makes me feel sad for the planets around that star (if any exist)! They’d have no light anymore!! 🙁

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