Can a white dwarf kill you?

A white dwarf is the remnant of a star like our sun which forms when the stars runs out of elements to fuse. As such it will not kill you directly but if you were on the earth then you would freeze to death because the sun would no longer be producing the amount of heat that it does now.

There are however situation where a white dwarf could kill you directly. When a white dwarf is in orbit round a normal star in a binary system, it is possible for the white dwarf to 'steal' gas from its companion. This hydrogen gas can accumulate on the what dwarf's surface and may periodically explode as a 'nova'. If, over time, enough material is stolen to make the white dwarf heavier than 1.4 solar masses (the Chandrasekhar limit), it will then explode as a type 1a 'super nova' which will destroy the white dwarf completely. If you were on a planet orbiting a star near such an explosion, it would kill you.