Four New White Dwarfs Discovered Within 65 Light-Years of Earth

Astronomers from the University of Warwick and the University of Colorado Boulder have identified four previously hidden white dwarf stars in binary systems with red dwarf companions, all located within about 65 light‑years of the Sun. The stars were detected using the Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet spectrograph, which can reveal white dwarfs that are otherwise outshone by their brighter red dwarf partners in visible light.

These binary systems exhibit a noticeable radial wobble, indicating massive companions. One notable system, G 203‑47, lies 25 light‑years away and has a red dwarf that rotates once every 100+ days while orbiting its white dwarf every 14.9 days—an unusual configuration that challenges expectations of tidal locking. The discovery updates the local census of nearby stellar remnants and demonstrates that even well‑studied regions of space can still hold surprises when observed at the right wavelengths.