mergeburst

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noun

An outburst of energy following a merger of two stars.

Scrabble 15

Meanings

nounmergeburst (plural mergebursts)

plural mergebursts

  1. astronomyAn outburst of energy following a merger of two stars.

    One hypothesis is that this was a mergeburst: the scream of two stars colliding. But it could also have been a rarely seen thermonuclear flare-up near the end of a giant star's life – or maybe a star swallowing giant planets.

    2018 August 7, New Scientist, A Journey Through The Universe:: A traveler's guide from the center of the sun to the edge of the unknown, Nicholas Brealey, →ISBN
    3 more examples

    This suggests that it was a mergeburst of a K-type main sequence star and a lower mass companion. The distance estimate is uncertain and the peak luminosity is ≈ −6mag. It is plausible that other Galactic events also have similar[…]

    2012 01, Mansi M. Kasliwal, Bridging the Gap: Elusive Explosions in the Local Universe, Universal-Publishers, →ISBN, page 129

    One idea, put forward by Tylenda and Noam Soker of the Israeli Institute of Technology, is that the explosion was a 'mergeburst', formed by the collision and merger of two stars. Computer simulations of such an event neatly describe[…]

    2012 September 20, Giles Sparrow, The Universe: In 100 Key Discoveries, Quercus Publishing, →ISBN

    At the time it was suggested that this was yet another example of a mergeburst – an object undergoing an outburst following a collision or merger event. However, spectra taken subsequently show a very hot, UV bright object[…]

    2013 September 5, David S. Stevenson, Extreme Explosions: Supernovae, Hypernovae, Magnetars, and Other Unusual Cosmic Blasts, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 338

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

mergeburst. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mergeburst

MLA

“mergeburst.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mergeburst. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mergeburst,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mergeburst.

Source: mergeburst on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.