STARS DISCOVERED
THE "WHITE DWARFS" GREAT HEAT AND DENSITY LONDON, Oct. 13 The discovery of the stars known as the "White Dwarfs," weighing 1,000,000 tons per pinhead, was announced yesterday at Edinburgh. The eminent astronomer, Sir James Jeans, in announcing his discovery when delivering the Royal Astronomical Society's Lorimer lecture al Edinburgh, explained that the White Dwarfs were the central stars of th* l planetary nebulae. As amazing as their density, he said, was their heat. They were the hottest stars and their heat he estimated at 60,000 degrees centigrade. A piece the size of a postage stamp « would be sufficient to drive the liner Queen Mary. He estimated their density at 36,000,000 times that of water. On a model of the universe, to the scale of one inch ta J,000,000 light years, stars which could be seen the eye would be the size of a speck of dust. Those seen with a telescope would be 80 feet in diameter.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19381018.2.91
Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23171, 18 October 1938, Page 9
Word Count
160STARS DISCOVERED New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23171, 18 October 1938, Page 9
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the New Zealand Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence . This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Auckland Libraries and NZME.