A dear friend and I recently discussed the nature of stars. He is also a very gifted astronomer and presenter, inspiring just about everyone who has the privilege of hearing him speak about space. Despite all his wonderfulness, I had to pick a stellar bone with him ... to which he patiently withstood.

Many scientific types characterize white dwarfs in diminutive and dreadful terms. These torus-headed, universally miniscule, and oft-bespecked fleshlings have the nerve to call post-nova. small, to midsized stars ... dead. True, a white dwarf no longer fuses hydrogen into helium and heavier periodic elements, but it will continue to radiate heat and light for what might as well be eternity when to compared to the lifespan of a human, or even a solar system.

Compare the white dwarf to the largest of stars that will become cannibalistic black holes after collapsing under their own girth, still famished, selfishly consuming photons, and universe's fondest memories, into the blackest pit of existence.

From breathing fire, to eating light ... and these are the bodies we choose to gravitate about. Meanwhile, sitting beautifully, high up on a spacetime hill, the white dwarf's carbon will have been condensed to a diamond corona; radiating a comfortable heat. Any life that may arise about the transformed star need not worry about being scorched in a fiery teenage tantrum. Indeed, the white dwarf is matured and now nothing but the embodiment of love and nurture. She is, however, no drab matron. Her splendidness is surround by stunning, gossamer, nebulaic iridescence.

Calling all that eternal beauty and warmth ... dead. How very dare you?

No, the white dwarf is the butterfly to the tempestuous hungry caterpillar that was its fusing star. So enough fascination with the fiery damsels or heavy, dark dragons, too heavy for the net; reach for the dappled light in our spacetime garden. I'll meet you fluttering about the nebula as soon ... as I figure out these wormholes.

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