Don Winget, the astronomer studies stars. His targets however are only about a yard away from him. Winget and his colleagues, for the past two have been creating plasmas that are miniature versions of white dwarf stars at the University of Texas at Austin and Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. White dwarfs are ancient stars that have burned up all of their nuclear fuel. As Winget says, “Astronomy has now become an experimental science.” Once like our sun, white dwarfs are slowly dying embers of stars. These stars collapse into Earth-sized balls that are bound tightly to oxygen and carbon nuclei with an outer layer of hydrogen plasma due to no nuclear fusion to sustain them. Astronomers have a lot to learn about the stars’ plasma exterior, due to the fact that it is the only part directly visible through a telescope. Astronomers also have a lot to learn about these white dwarf stars in general.

 

 

Information obtained at www.discovermagazine.com pictures obtained at www.voanews.com and www.celestiamotherlode.net