Apparently when our sun has lived out its entire life, it will pulse and fade away to a white dwarf. It will do this because it will have used up all of its fuel. That being said, since the Hydrogen Fusion is what creates sunlight with Photons, what is it that keeps the white dwarf it will be glowing? What creates the light then?
In: Physics
Any atoms emit radiation depending on on it’s temperature. Most stuff here on earth is in a temperature range that emit in infrared. If you look at your oven heating element it’s gonna be reddish, a fire is yellow at the center when the temperature is higer, but orange to red on the outside, a plasma torch will glow white. This is where the glow from a white dwarf come from. There is a LOT of residual heat from the star concentrated on the white dwarf, the temperature will be high enough that it will glow white.
Now in heat transfer in 3 ways, convection, conduction and radiation. There isn’t a fluid around the white dwarf for convection, space is empty so nothing for conduction, so the only way the heat of the dwarf excape into space is by thermal radiation, which take a lot of time so they will glow for a very long time. In 2012 some white dwarf were found at temperature below 3 900 K or 3 600 celsius or 6 500 fahrentheit and those were 11 to 12 billion years old.
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