white dwarf
noun
plural white dwarfs
Definition of white dwarf
: a small hot whitish star of low intrinsic brightness usually with a mass approximately equal to that of the sun but with a density many times larger
Examples of white dwarf in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Our own sun will go through this in roughly 6 billion years or so, and the remaining white dwarf won’t be much larger than our Earth. — Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, "Sky Watch: Lyra the Lyre may be a small constellation, but it has a big story," 18 Aug. 2019 Astronomers already know that white dwarf binary systems are out there in abundance and expect to see tens of thousands of them in our galaxy alone using LISA, Tamanini says. — Conor Purcell, Scientific American, "Future Gravitational-Wave Detectors Could Find Exoplanets, Too," 8 July 2019 So, finding a white dwarf that doesn’t look like an accountant is interesting. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Two white dwarfs collide, may end up as neutron star," 29 May 2019 This is the first time this method has been used to identify a planetary body orbiting a white dwarf. — Catherine Zuckerman, National Geographic, "Newfound tiny planet may be a glimpse of Earth's ultimate fate," 4 Apr. 2019 However, a smaller subset of supernovas occurs when a white dwarf — the glowing ember left behind when a regular-sized star dies — reignites and rips apart. — Yvette Cendes, Discover Magazine, "What Are FRBs? The Discovery of Mysterious Signals From the Cosmos," 7 Feb. 2019 The two white dwarf stars complete an orbit around each other every seven minutes. — Ashley Strickland, CNN, "These two dead stars zip around each other every seven minutes," 24 July 2019 Black holes, white dwarfs, asteroids, planets, moons, just to name a few. — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, "They're Not Moons. They're Not Planets. They're Ploonets.," 10 July 2019 On its own, a white dwarf will not produce gravitational waves. — John Timmer, Ars Technica, "Space-based gravitational-wave detector may detect strange exoplanets," 9 July 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'white dwarf.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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