Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper published Sunday analysed spectra from about 151 nearby white dwarfs and converted those spectra into human-visible colours, identifying WD J1330+6435 as a chartreuse‑green example.
- The team attributes the green hue to sodium atoms interacting with helium under the star’s extreme atmospheric density, which alters which wavelengths of light the star absorbs and which reach our eyes.
- The reported colour is a calculated appearance produced by models that map measured spectra into human colour perception, not a direct colour photograph of the star.
- Heavy elements seen in the white dwarf’s spectrum — including sodium, iron and magnesium — are interpreted as material from disrupted rocky bodies that fell onto the star, making polluted white dwarfs tools to probe former planetary systems.
- The study found only a small fraction of white dwarfs show extreme colour shifts, and the authors say larger spectroscopic surveys should find more examples even as catalog details such as WD J1330+6435’s distance (reported near 280 light‑years in some accounts) are checked against astrometric catalogs.