WD J1330+6435: The First Green Star?

🔭 WD J1330+6435 Challenges Familiar Stellar Colors

Astronomers usually read a star’s visible color as a clue to its temperature, but WD J1330+6435 presents a rarer puzzle: a white dwarf whose polluted atmosphere may give its light a distinctly greenish appearance.

Star light, star bright—is there a green star out tonight?

🌈 Stellar Temperatures Explain Most Visible Colors

Most stars appear as tiny points in the sky. They’re usually white, though some look distinctly red or blue. That color is a clue to a star’s temperature: blue stars are hotter than red ones.

But what about green?

🪨 Rocky Debris Alters the White Dwarf’s Light

The featured illustration shows WD J1330+6435, a white dwarf surrounded by a disk of gas and rocky debris. White dwarfs are the small, faint remnants left behind when stars like our Sun run out of nuclear fuel. Despite their name, some white dwarfs may appear yellow, green, cyan, pink, or purple.

Their unusual hues come from trace elements that have fallen onto the stars and interact with their atmospheres, shifting the light we see. So WD J1330+6435 may be among the first stars identified with a greenish appearance—but don’t expect to spot it with the naked eye. It’s far too faint.

🌌 The Green Star Remains Beyond Naked-Eye View

I wish I may, I wish I might… but this green star won’t be shining in your backyard tonight.

Tomorrow’s picture: Eye in the sky
Image via NASAhttps://ift.tt/U3FlHjA

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