A Quick Estimate of Density

The observation that white dwarfs are roughly the size of the Earth but contain the mass of the Sun allows us to make a quick estimate of their densities. The density is the mass divided by the volume. Since the volume of the Sun is about a million times larger than that of the Earth (and thus of a white dwarf), the average density of a white dwarf is a million times larger than that of the Sun. This estimate is approximately correct: white dwarfs have densities that are typically about a million grams per cubic centimeter while the Sun has a density a little more than one gram per cubic centimeter.