white dwarf

A white dwarf is a very dense type of star: in an Earth-sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. A white dwarf radiates light from residual heat and eventual crystallization, not from nuclear fusion. Stars like the Sun, whose mass is not high enough to collapse into a neutron star or black hole, are expected to become white dwarf stars later in their evolution. The nearest known white dwarf is Sirius B, at 8.6 light years, the smaller component of the Sirius binary star.