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when a star like our sun no longer has any hydrogen or helium \"fuel\" for therm

ID: 2022868 • Letter: W

Question

when a star like our sun no longer has any hydrogen or helium "fuel" for thermonuclear reactions in its core, it can coolapse and become a white dwarf star. often the star will "blow off" its outer layers and lose some mass before it collapses into the rapidly spinning, dense white dwarf. suppose a star with mass 1.0Msun, with a radius of 6.96x10*8m and rotating once every 25 days, becomes a white dwarf with a mass of 0.60Msun and a rotation period of 131s. what is the radius of this white dwarf?

Explanation / Answer

Conservation of angular momentum demands

For a sphere,

Hope this helps. Good luck!