When observing the night sky, it's easy to forget that every point of twinkling light is a star at some point in its life ... a white dwarf stops producing light, it becomes a black dwarf.

The life cycle for a particular star depends on its ... In this instance, the star becomes a white dwarf which fades and changes colour as it cools.

A red dwarf, which is half as massive as the sun ... reaching the end of its life cycle. At this point, it leaves the main sequence. Stars smaller than a quarter the mass of the sun collapse ...

No black dwarf has been detected yet ... Stars of a few solar masses also end their life cycles as white dwarfs; however, these objects have a mixture of carbon, oxygen, neon, and magnesium ...

A star will enjoy most of its life in the main sequence phase ... even hundreds of billions of years - a white dwarf will cool until it becomes a black dwarf, which are invisible because they ...