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White dwarves

For stars up to about 8 solar masses (the mass of our sun), the star will collapse until an electron degeneracy pressure takes over. Recall that electrons obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two electrons can occupy the same state. It is this force which will prevent further collapse, and the star becomes a white dwarf, eventually a mass of Carbon about the size of the Earth.

modtech@theory.uwinnipeg.ca
1999-09-29