What are white dwarfs?

A white dwarf is like a super-dense, shrunken star that used to be bigger and brighter, now it’s small but still hot.

Imagine you have a big, fluffy marshmallow. That's like the star when it was young, soft and full of energy. But as time goes on, the marshmallow gets squeezed and becomes tiny and hard, just like a white dwarf.

A star is like a giant fireball in space. When it runs out of fuel, it can no longer hold itself up, so it starts to shrink. The outer parts of the star blow away like the fluff from a marshmallow, leaving behind the hot, dense core, that’s the white dwarf.

A white dwarf is super tiny, about the size of Earth, but it has the mass of our Sun! That means it's packed with energy. It glows brightly because it's still very hot from when it was squeezed down, like a marshmallow that’s been microwaved and then left to cool.

Over time, it will get colder and dimmer, becoming more like a quiet, sleepy star, but for now, it’s bright and full of life!