Dr. Steve Kawaler, Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University, explores the mysteries of white dwarf stars — the ...

White dwarfs — the superdense, slowly cooling embers left behind when stars like our sun die — are usually quiet cosmic relics. A rare few, however, are anything but. In recent years, astronomers ...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered the remains of a frozen, Pluto-like world being devoured by a ...

Astronomers have discovered a freezing-cold world orbiting within the so-called "forbidden zone" around a dying star in which planets are normally destroyed. The 5.8-billion-year-old white ...

Scientists have discovered a “greedy” white dwarf star that is “going thermonuclear” as it devours its twin at an ...

After the sun finally dies, billions of years in the future, Earth too will meet a grisly end. There are several ways that our home planet may be destroyed after the sun dies, possibly being swallowed ...