Meet Our Newest Stellar Neighbours That Hid in the Glare of Other Stars

This artist's illustration shows a white dwarf and its much larger red dwarf binary companion. Astronomers have four more of these binary stars in the Sun's neighborhood. They're called post-common-envelope binaries, and they're hard to detect because the bright red dwarf hides the white dwarf from telescopes. Image Credit: Mark A. Garlick/University of Warwick

Astronomers have found four new white dwarfs within about 65 light years. Even though the sky has been studied thoroughly, these escaped detection. That's because they're tight binaries with red dwarf partners, and the much brighter red dwarfs hide the white dwarfs. The binaries used to share common envelopes.

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