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White dwarfs, the extremely dense remnants left behind by most stars after their death, are characterized by a mass comparable to that of the Sun compressed into the size of an Earth-like planet. In the resulting strong gravity, heavy elements sink towards the centre and the upper layer of the atmosphere contains only the lightest element present, usually hydrogen or helium1,2. Several mechanisms compete with gravitational settling to change a white dwarf’s surface composition as it cools3, and the fraction of white dwarfs with helium atmospheres is known to increase by a factor of about 2.5 below a temperature of about 30,000 kelvin4–8; therefore, some white dwarfs that appear to have hydrogen-dominated atmospheres above 30,000 kelvin are bound to transition to be helium-dominated as they cool below it. Here we report observations of ZTF J203349.8+322901.1, a transitioning white dwarf with two faces: one side of its atmosphere is dominated by hydrogen and

United kingdomDouglas goughGran telescopio canariasGentile fusilloHolland publishing coAstronomical society of the pacific conference seriesSloan digital sky survey dataSloan digital skyAmerican institute of physics conference series volPalomar greenSecond conferenceFaint blue starsZwicky transient facilityGran telescopioKeck low resolution imagingEuropean workshop