Hubble Finds Young White Dwarfs on the Fast Track

These images show young and old white dwarf stars - the burned-out relics of normal stars - in the ancient globular star cluster NGC 6397.

The image at left, taken by a ground-based telescope, shows the dense swarm of hundreds of thousands of stars that make up the globular cluster. The white box outlines the location of the observations made by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The image at top, right, taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveals young white dwarfs less than 800 million years old and older white dwarfs between 1.4 and 3.5 billion years old. The photo shows 12 of the 84 white dwarfs in the Hubble study. The blue squares pinpoint the young white dwarfs; the red circles outline the older white dwarfs. The Hubble researchers distinguished the younger from the older white dwarfs based on their colour and brightness. The younger white dwarfs are hotter and therefore bluer and brighter than the older ones.