Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aps..ses..db04o&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, Southeastern Section Meeting, November 13-15, 1998 Miami, Florida, abstract #DB.04
Physics
Scientific paper
White dwarf stars are the final evolutionary state for the overwhelming majority of normal stars like the Sun. They no longer generate significant energy, and cool slowly enough that even the oldest are still observable. In principle, these faint stars provide a nearly complete record of the star-formation history in the Solar neighborhood, and constitute some fraction of Galaxy's dark matter content. The coolest, faintest white dwarfs are remnants of the first stars to form in the Galaxy. A comparison of their observed present temperatures with theoretical cooling models provides a firm minimum age for the Galaxy, and hence for the Universe at large. We will discuss how studies of white dwarf stars lead to the conclusion that star formation most likely commenced in the Solar neighborhood ~ 10 Gyr ago, in accord with the most recent estimates for the age of the Universe, as derived from studies of stellar globular clusters and determinations of the Hubble constant.
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