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Birthday · October 22, 2026

The First Green Star, WD J1330+6435

October 22, 2026

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Selected image source ↗ APOD published October 22, 2026. Credit: Mark A. Garlick/University of Warwick. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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The First Green Star, WD J1330+6435

Original APOD · October 22, 2026 ↗

Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.

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Star light, star bright: is there a green star out tonight? Other than the Sun, all stars are so far from Earth that they appear as points in the sky. They are mostly white, but sometimes noticeably red or blue. This color typically relates to the temperature: blue stars are hotter than red stars. What about other colors? The featured image is an illustration showing WD J1330+6435, a white dwarf star, surrounded by an accretion disk with gas and rocks orbiting the star. White dwarfs are small, faint stars that are left over when a star like the Sun exhausts its nuclear fuel. Astronomers recently found that some white dwarf stars, despite their name, would appear yellow, green, cyan, pink, or purple. In these cases, trace elements that were accreted to these stars interact with the stellar atmosphere and shift its normally white color. But, alas! I wish I may, I wish I might, but they are too faint to see tonight...

Image credit: Mark A. Garlick/University of Warwick

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