Astrophysicists Discover White Dwarfs Can Halt Cooling for Billions of Years

New findings challenge long-held beliefs about the aging process of white dwarf stars, revealing a complex internal mechanism.

New research challenges the classical view of white dwarf stars as 'dead stars' that continuously cool, revealing some can stop cooling for over eight billion years.
The phenomenon occurs due to the formation of floating crystals in the star's interior, which disrupts the cooling process by releasing gravitational energy.
This discovery, made using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite, marks the first observation of such a transport mechanism in any type of star.
The findings suggest that some white dwarfs may be billions of years older than previously thought, complicating the process of determining the age of stellar populations.
The research necessitates a revision of astronomy textbooks and a reevaluation of methods used to estimate the age of stars.