White Dwarf (star type)

This article covers the stellar type White Dwarf, a stellar remnant left behind by smaller stars when they exhaust their fuel.

• For the magazine see White Dwarf (magazine)
• Please see Degenerate Dwarf section at article Star.

Description (Specifications)

The White Dwarf is one of three main types of stellar remnant:

1. White Dwarf
2. Neutron Star
3. Black Hole

The White Dwarf is made from electron-degenerate matter left after the fuel in a star has fused and where the resulting material is not sufficiently compressed by gravity to fuse on its own. Proto-Stars that are too light to fuse hydrogen in the first-place are Brown Dwarfs.

White Dwarfs can be found in many sectors throughout charted space and are generally not of interest but when closely paired with other stars or stellar remnants can be a danger to navigation due to some interaction effects. e.g. Formation System.

White Dwarfs have considerable mass despite their small size because of their density (about 10⁹ kg/m³). Their considerable mass (and temperature) makes landing impossible for any Imperial ship, and close approach at low speed can result in permanent capture. They have noticeable effects on jump-space and extend jump-shadows just like any other physical body.

History & Background (Dossier)

White Dwarfs have been known-of since about a century before spaceflight. They are relatively common.

Any main sequence star of classes A,F,G,K or M (and the lighter B class) will become a White Dwarf, although none of those at the lowest end of the stellar mass range have yet reached that stage.

No White Dwarf can be more massive than about 1.44 the mass of Sol. More massive objects will form Neutron Stars or Black Holes.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at White_dwarf. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Marc Miller. Scouts (Game Designers Workshop, 1983), 21-45.
• Author: BackworldTraveller