3 ms·
Sweet fuck, that’s the worst and least informative title I’ve ever seen! None of it is accurate, all of it is misleading. What can happen is that a white dwarf
by GW150914 8y ago
Sweet fuck, that’s the worst and least informative title I’ve ever seen! None of it is accurate, all of it is misleading.
What can happen is that a white dwarf (which is not a star, but a stellar remnant) can be sufficiently heated and compressed by a close approach to a black hole that ignition occurs. No “burping” involved, and the fusion is not a lasting event. Black holes do not metaphorically or otherwise “burp up” anything, certainly not whole stars.
Sorry for the rage, but I just hate bad pop sci.