Ultraviolet Spotlight Reveals Four Hidden White Dwarfs Within 65 Light-Years
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet observations have directly confirmed four white dwarfs hiding in the glare of nearby red-dwarf companions, all within about 65 light‑years. One, G 203-47, is the ninth-closest white dwarf to the Sun. The detections show how UV imaging can reveal faint remnants that optical surveys miss, though three of the four temperatures are only estimates due to noisier data. The census of local white dwarfs within 20 parsecs rises by roughly 16% to 153, suggesting more hidden white-dwarf–red-dwarf pairs may exist and could be uncovered with Gaia data in the future.