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Space

Weird floating crystals can stop stars ageing for billions of years

Some white dwarfs seem to stop ageing for billions of years, and this may be due to the behaviour of unusual ice crystals that heat up the stars

By Leah Crane

6 March 2024

Some massive white dwarf stars seem to stop ageing for billions of years. Now we may know why

NASA, ESA, P. McGill (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz and University of Cambridge), K. Sahu (STScI), J. Depasquale (STScI)

Some white dwarf stars may be frozen in time because of strange floating crystals. The crystals seem to keep the stars from cooling as they age, so the white dwarfs look relatively young for billions of years.

White dwarfs form when stars similar to our sun burn through all of their fuel and blow off their outer layers. This leaves behind a hot…

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