Astronomers have measured the mass of a lone white dwarf star for the first time. This type of smoldering stellar remnant is formed at the end of the lives of low-mass stars and will be what the sun leaves behind when it dies in around 5 billion years.
The Hubble Space Telescope measured the mass of a white dwarf designated LAWD 37, which burned out over 1 billion years ago. In the work, scientists used a phenomenon first predicted in 1915 by Albert Einstein called “gravitational lensing,” which involves the bending of light by objects of great mass. The team determined that LAWD 37 has a mass around 56% that of the sun. The finding confirms current theories of how these stellar remnants form and evolve. This particular white dwarf is well studied because it is relatively close to Earth at just 15 light-years away in the constellation of Musca.
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