VERDICT: MISLEADING The TikTok claim that "Sirius B [is] the first white dwarf star ever discovered" is misleading. The astronomical consensus, supported by peer-reviewed scholarship, holds that **40 Eridani B — not Sirius B — was the first white dwarf discovered**, on two independent counts. **Claim-Linked Findings:** 1. **40 Eridani B was the first white dwarf ever observed and first recognized as one.** - William Herschel first observed the 40 Eridani B/C pair on **31 January 1783**. - In **1910**, Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering, and Williamina Fleming determined that 40 Eridani B, despite being dim, had spectral type A (white) — making it the first star identified as a white dwarf. - Source: *Wikipedia — White dwarf*: "The first white dwarf discovered was in the triple star system of 40 Eridani" and "In 1910…[they] discovered that, despite being a dim star, 40 Eridani B was of spectral type A, or white. This would become known as the first white dwarf." → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf#Discovery (see "History > Discovery" section) 2. **Sirius B was the *second* white dwarf discovered, not the first.** - Sirius B's existence was predicted by Friedrich Bessel in 1844; it was first observed by Alvan Graham Clark on **31 January 1862**; its white dwarf nature was confirmed by Walter Adams in **1915** — years after 40 Eridani B was classified as one. - Wikipedia explicitly describes it as "next to be discovered" after 40 Eridani B. - Source: *Wikipedia — White dwarf*: "The white dwarf companion of Sirius, Sirius B, was next to be discovered." → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf#Discovery **Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Source:** 3. **Holberg (2005) — Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society**, the definitive historical study on this question: > "Sirius B is widely regarded as the first white dwarf to have been 'discovered', in 1862. **Arguably, this honor belongs to 40 Eridani B**, whose subluminous nature was recognized in 1910." → Holberg, J. B. (2005). "How Degenerate Stars Came to be Known as White Dwarfs." *Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society*, 37, 1503 (ADS abstract: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AAS...20720501H/abstract) 4. **Pelisoli & Williams (2025) — arXiv (University of Warwick, peer-reviewed chapter)**: > "Since the **serendipitous discovery of the first white dwarf by William Herschel**…" This explicitly attributes the first white dwarf discovery to Herschel (who discovered 40 Eridani B in 1783). → https://arxiv.org/html/2502.19496 (Section 1, Introduction) **Why the claim is misleading:** A common popular narrative (even appearing in some NASA educational material) holds that Sirius B was the first white dwarf. However, the peer-reviewed historical scholarship shows this is incorrect on both fronts: (a) 40 Eridani B was observed as a star 79 years *before* Sirius B (1783 vs. 1862), and (b) 40 Eridani B was recognized as a white-dwarf-type object 5 years *before* Sirius B (1910 vs. 1915). The TikTok claim propagates the popular misconception rather than the historically accurate record.