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Alvan Graham Clark sees Sirius B

node

Testing a newly figured 18.5-inch refractor at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Clark resolved a faint companion beside Sirius - the object whose motion had already been inferred from the wobble of Sirius A. It was the first white dwarf ever seen, though nothing about it could be understood for another sixty years: a star of roughly solar mass in a body about the size of the Earth implied densities that classical physics had no way to support.

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Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 2
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 19 blocks · 1 evidence · 12 related

  1. Story
  2. Testing a newly figured 18.5-inch refractor at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Clark resolved a faint companion beside Sirius - the object whose motion had already been inferred from the wobble of Sirius A. It was the first white dwarf ever seen, though nothing about it could be understood for another sixty years: a star of roughly solar mass in a body about the size of the Earth implied densities that classical physics had no way to support.
  3. Knowledge
  4. White dwarf
  5. Sirius B
  6. Alvan Graham Clark sees Sirius B
  7. Connections
  8. Sirius B
  9. White dwarf
  10. White dwarf
  11. Alvan Graham Clark sees Sirius B
  12. Chandrasekhar limit
  13. Degeneracy pressure
  14. Red giant and asymptotic giant branch
  15. Sirius B
  16. Alvan Graham Clark sees Sirius B
  17. A maximum mass for ideal white dwarfs is published
  18. Evidence
  19. Supports the identification of Sirius B as the first observed white dwarf and the Stefan-Boltzmann radius estimate of about 0.008 solar radii at roughly 25,000 K. Neither source was fetched; the 31 January 1862 discovery date and the 18.5-inch aperture come from reference summaries.
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Observed changes · 0

No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

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/atlas?object=EVT_SIRIUS_B_DISCOVERED&experience=EVT_SIRIUS_B_DISCOVERED