SUMMARY: Astronomers have found a white dwarf star which has shut down its fusion reactor very recently - perhaps only 100 years ago. By probing this star with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), astronomers see that its heart is completely stripped of hydrogen and helium; the surface is largely carbon and oxygen, heated to 200,000 degrees. Nothing like this has ever been seen. Our own Sun will eventually become a star like this, after it has expended all of its hydrogen fuel.

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