A white dwarf is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. Because a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth, it is very dense. Their faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat. They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering and Williamina Fleming. White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high. The material in a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions, so the star has no source of energy, nor is it supported against gravitational collapse by the heat generated by fusion. It is supported only by electron degeneracy pressure, causing it to be extremely dense. The physics of degeneracy yields a maximum mass for a nonrotating white dwarf, the Chandrasekhar limit—approximately 1.4 solar masses—beyond which it cannot be supported by degeneracy pressure. Over a very long time, a white dwarf will cool to temperatures at which it will no longer be visible, and become a cold black dwarf.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1530:

The Augsburg Confession, the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church, was presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augsburg_Confession

1876:

Black Hills War: United States Army Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in present-day Big Horn County, Montana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Armstrong_Custer

1938:

Douglas Hyde became the first President of Ireland after the office was established by the Constitution of Ireland in 1937. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hyde

1996:

The Khobar Towers bombing in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, left 19 American servicemen dead and 372 of many nationalities wounded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing

2006:

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in a cross border raid from the Gaza Strip on the crossing Kerem Shalom, and has been held hostage by Hamas since. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Shalit

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

prolix (adj): 1. Tediously lengthy.

2. Tending to use large or obscure words, which few understand http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prolix

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." ... By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. --George Orwell http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell