White dwarves come about when Sun-like stars run out of fuel to keep their own thermal energy maintained, collapsing and allowing for a star that has immensely large density, as it retains Sun-like masses for radii that are similar to the Earth’s. In theory, this is fairly simple to understand and process as a means to follow the evolution of certain stars. In stars, however, the fusion processes that allow energy to be generated and exist generally involve relatively few elements worth noting, generally simply hydrogen and helium. White dwarves, even if they were hot, for some reason, even if classified as pure hydrogen or helium, had always been contaminated with other elements that have drawn scientists crazy in an attempt to understand how.
Now, it has been speculated and seen that such elements are the result of planetary debris, the contamination of planetary systems that leave behind rocky material that form such diverse element groups within white dwarves that would normally never include such elements. Using the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer telescope, researchers could discern the spectra and thus determine which elements remained inside these white dwarves. What is fascinating about these means of contamination that allow for this diversity in elements remained a mystery because there was no consistency as to how certain elements ended up on these white dwarves, leading to vast differences in the abundance of specific elements. These stars bear a stark similarity to rocky material in general, as stars or interstellar gases generally lack these compositions.
As the researchers end the same discoveries, we can only assume that this means good progress and good discoveries are on their ways in a world where we have spent almost 20 years discovering this, this leads us to be able to project future white dwarves and their behavior. One particularly scary example I’ll leave you with for the future is the Sun. When the Sun becomes a white dwarf, its fate will be “ending up as merely contamination within the white dwarf remnant of our Sun.”
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326092240.htm
