![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ezgif.com-speed-e17c.gif\")
\n\t\tEnjoy the solar rainbow (Picture: Getty Images\/Mark Hollands\/University of Warwick)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tEnjoy the solar rainbow (Picture: Getty Images\/Mark Hollands\/University of Warwick)<\/p>\n
When you look up at the stars, these tiny pinpricks of light all look the same colour. <\/p>\n
But these cosmic radiators actually shine all sorts of colours depending on how hot they are.<\/p>\n
Scorching solar newborns are blue, lukewarm ones are yellow and elderly stars shine orange and red<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Any other colours, green included, are not possible,\u2019 Mark Hollands<\/a>, an astrophysicist at the University<\/a> of Warwick, tells Metro.<\/p>\n Well, that is until Hollands and his team\u00a0found one. <\/p>\n Why is this star green?<\/p>\n \t\t Astronomers have long thought white dwarves, the embers left behind when a star dies<\/a>, follow the same temperature colour rule. They\u2019re hot, so they are a bluish white, hence the name.<\/p>\n But as Holland and his co-authors wrote in their paper published in the journal\u00a0RAS Techniques and Instruments<\/a>, these solar husks can actually be colours never seen in other stars.<\/p>\n Researchers calculated what colour 151 white dwarfs would look like to the human eye. Of them, 146 live up to their name.<\/p>\n Yet WDJ1330+6435, a dead star 280 light-years from Earth, or about 165trillion miles away, \u200bin the constellation Draco, glows green.<\/p>\n This white dwarf has been absorbing iron-, magnesium-, and sodium-rich slush from the rocky planets that once orbited it.<\/p>\n \u2018Think of something like asteroids or minor planets that have ventured too close to the white dwarf, have been shredded into dust by tidal forces <\/a>and then rained down onto the stellar surface where they get mixed in,\u2019 Hollands says.<\/p>\n \t\t Chemical elements \u2013 the things in the periodic table \u2013 absorb different colours of light and spit out the rest. Sodium\u2019s favourite colour is orange, which is why sodium street lamps glow a dull yellow.<\/p>\n WDJ1330+6435 is so dense that the star\u2019s helium plasma, the gooey fourth state of matter, makes the sodium soak orange, yellow and red light.<\/p>\n \u2018This absorbed radiation is then re-radiated at other wavelengths, with the emergent spectrum having a beautiful green colour,\u2019 Hollands says.<\/p>\n If our sun <\/a>\u2013 which, as Hollands says, is white, not yellow \u2013 were replaced with WDJ1330+6435, Earth wouldn\u2019t be the same. <\/p>\n Hollands says the star would be tiny in the sky as it\u2019s 100 times smaller. Earth would have a wider orbit as the white dwarf\u2019s gravity isn\u2019t as strong.<\/p>\n \u2018Even if we could move the Earth closer in somehow, so that the star appeared bigger in the sky, plant life on Earth absorbs mostly violet and red light, reflecting the green, to grow,\u2019 he adds.<\/p>\n \u2018With some of these wavelengths missing from WDJ1330+6435, that certainly wouldn\u2019t be good news for us.\u2019<\/p>\n Are there other coloured stars?<\/p>\n \t\t WDJ1330+6435\u00a0is the first known genuinely green star in the Milky Way.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of five white dwarf stars the astronomers found that glow an odd colour because of the material in their atmospheres.<\/p>\n Hydrogen- and helium-filled wisps were cyan or \u200ba pale blue and stars that swallowed asteroids<\/a> or rocky planets were yellowish or, in the case of WD J1330+6435, chartreuse.<\/p>\n Carbon-rich ones were pink or purple, like WD J1011+2845, which is 48 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo \u200bMinor.<\/p>\n The star glows a salmon-pink hue because its convection zone \u2013 layers of hot and cold slush \u2013 is so deep that carbon leaks from inside it.<\/p>\n \u2018We also found some of these carbon-rich white dwarfs to be pale purple as well, if the stellar temperature is a bit higher and the abundance of carbon a bit lower,\u2019 says Hollands.<\/p>\n \t\t As white dwarf stars can\u2019t be seen directly from Earth, the astronomers deduced their colours using star spectrum data, the \u2018fingerprint<\/a>\u2019 left when starlight is split apart by wavelength.<\/p>\n Hollands says that while the findings don\u2019t change how we see white dwarf stars \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 they show just how colourful the universe is. <\/p>\n Even brown dwarf stars, failed stars too small to attain the gravity needed to get their hydrogen motors running, can sparkle.<\/p>\n \u2018Most of their light is radiated in the infrared, but a small amount is still emitted at visible wavelengths, with absorption from sodium, potassium, and titanium oxide affecting their perceived colours,\u2019 Hollands says. <\/p>\n \u2018Other people have in the past worked out the colours of brown dwarfs from their spectra and determined that they would be violet or purple.\u2019<\/p>\n Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more stories like this, check our news page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317321760-67f5.jpg\")
\n\t\tWDJ1330+6435, which is about 4,000\u00b0C, glows a ghostly green (Picture: Mark Hollands, University of Warwick)<\/p>\n![\"EMBARGOED](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/PRI_204731726-7f42.jpg\")
\n\t\tWhite dwarves, while very hot, shine dimly (Picture: PA)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317321752-ff5a.jpg\")
\n\t\tWhite dwarves are like giant cotton wool balls, tinted by the material they absorb (Picture: Mark Hollands\/University of Warwick<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317321740-3689.jpg\")
\n\t\tAnother white dwarf, WD J1011+2845, that would appear pink to the human eye (Picture: Mark Hollands\/University of Warwick)<\/p>\n
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