If you pay attention to your stellar evolution, we understand that at some point in time white dwarfs eventually lose all energy and “retire” as a black dwarf.
If I remember right, A black dwarf is approximately the size of earth but has a considerable amount of density in comparison.
Is it possible to be caught off guard by one of these floating around are galaxy? Since the black dwarf doesn’t have anymore energy to emit light, we couldn’t see it. I suppose we wouldn’t until our sun would reflect off of it, right?
Would this bring chaos to our solar system?
Let’s assume a black dwarf does exist at this point in time. I realize that it takes awhile for a white dwarf to lose it’s energy.
odimwith, hey man, I’m sorry I’m not as smart as you and use the kind of terminology you do. Looks like you’re not getting best answer.
A black dwarf would be difficult to detect. The heat emitted by one would still remain above the cosmic background radiation temperature. Another way to detect one would be through their gravitational influence upon other stars.
You are correct about size and density. Your additionals are also correct. If we enter a ‘what if’ scenario, then we must compare black dwarfs to other stars. As our Sun is a single star and not in a binary or multiple system, we very rarely are influenced by other stars. However, it can happen for a star to pass close enough to our own to affect our Solar System. It probably has happened in the past as the current theory holds that this is what disturbed comets in the Kupier belt and the theoretical Oort cloud.
The black dwarf would still retain it’s mass and thus it’s gravity. The degree of chaos would be relative to how close the black dwarf came to our Sun. At the very least it would disturb more comets and send them flying in elliptical orbits increasing the likelihood of impacting the planets in our Solar System.
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A black dwarf would have completed it’s fusion making detection by IR difficult as it would be emiting very little radiation if any.
