The Milky Way is a spectacular sight in the summer skies but why does it look so much more brilliant than it does in the winter?
A new study by Manuel Barrientos and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma reveals that between 0.6% and 2.5% of white dwarfs in our solar neighbourhood undergo dramatic cooling delays that could extend habitable zones for billions of additional years. The secret lies in an element known as neon-22, which after carbon and oxygen, is the most abundant element inside white dwarfs.
