Once Around White Dwarf Stars

Another look at the subject of white dwarf stars - This one is replacing an earlier version where the sound was a bit off, but with some changes and updates.

[fburton]

13:25 Mr Creosote’s “wafer-thin mint” inevitably springs to mind. 😅

[randallpetersen]

This comment section is like a lecture hall. Surprising that you answer all these comments and questions directly. I feel like we should be raising our hands!

[timkohchi]

Thank you! Your audio is much improved I appreciate that. Makes it much more enjoyable to watch.

[clayz]

Never forget who you are Little Star. Proof of tininess only takes a glance to the sky.

[idadru]

A new video is great to see. I've been blasting through your stuff every night ever since YouTube sent you my way.

[randallpetersen]

I'm sad that no one calls them Fraunhofer lines anymore. I remember when I got my first spectroscope as a kid and saw them in the sun's spectrum, I thought they were the coolest thing.

[rebeccawinter]

11:12 your explanation here - is this what astrophysicists call electron degeneracy pressure? Your expianations are great at helping articulate some of these more complex concepts.

[Peter_Morris]

Little bit of a bombshell right at the end there. I didn’t quite follow but it seems like an exciting topic for a full video.

[richardzeitz]

I'm the first to thumbs-up and comment! Hooray! Starting my Saturday morning with an erudite lecture on white dwarfs. How nice!

Question: does the composition of a white dwarf affect the strength or spectrum of a type 1a supernova? I've read of helium white dwarfs, white dwarfs composed of mostly carbon or oxygen and neon, or various ratios of them. My understanding of fusion was that every fusion event releases an amount of energy somewhere in the same ballpark as every other, regardless of the size of the nucleus, so the ratio of energy to the number of nucleons, or mass, differs considerably. Wouldn't that mean a white dwarf made of helium release proportionally more energy than one made of heavier nuclei? I'm curious as to how white dwarfs of different compositions release the same amount of energy in type 1a supernovae.

[defeatSpace]

The intro caught me off-guard because the same words cross my mind while I'm deciding which video to watch, pretty much word-for-word from 0:00 😆

[randallpetersen]

In addition to Star Trek, 40 Eridani is seen in more recent SF, such as Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, and Dennis Taylor's Bobiverse series. In the latter, a Von Neumann probe based on a nerd named Bob is the first Earthling to the system, so naturally he names two planets there Vulcan and Romulus.

[legiran]

Would love to see you do Once Around Quark Stars and Strange Stars.

[Hooch]

Re reading project hail mary at the moment. That first system sounds a little familiar 👐

[NCXDKG]

Now I wonder: what would a white dwarf taste like?

[halsnyder]

Thank you for your answer, please ​​⁠let me rephrase, if the accumulation can be blown off in the odd nova, what allows it to pass this point and reach 1.44 solar masses?

[ReclinedPhysicist]

How close does a binary pair need to be before it can trigger a type 1a supernova? Is Sirius close enough to its companion for it to blow and make life kind of questionable on Earth someday?

[simonjlkoreshoff]

Great video, Paul. If the Chandrasekhar limit can’t be used as a standard candle for determining distance as was previously thought, does this call into question the dark matter theory?

[thylange]

Can a white dwarf star collapse to a neutron star?

[narrtaslin]

Was watching a debate the other day from the Cambridge university YT and they had a debate about whether or not a white dwarf was still considered a star.

I was wondering when watching the debate that if a white dwarf were to interact with a younger star via collision would that reignite it and make it into a blue straggler? Or do blue stragglers come from other type stars interacting with younger stars?

[halsnyder]

Sir, a question. Since both periodic novas and type1a supernovas involve gas capture by a white dwarf, how do we get each?