White Dwarfs Aren’t Just White. Scientists Discover Dying Stars Turning Pink and Green

At the end of their lives, stars with a mass similar to the sun expand and turn into red giants. Subsequently, they shed their gaseous envelope, creating a planetary nebula that we can admire through telescopes. In place of the star, a white dwarf remains—a highly condensed object the approximate volume of the Earth but the mass of the sun.

Initially, white dwarfs have extremely high temperatures, and so the first ones discovered shone from white to light blue. That’s how they got their name. But according to a new study published in the journal RAS Techniques and Instruments, the world of white dwarfs is actually far more colorful—with some stars turning pink, green, and even purple.