Strictly speaking, any death that would likely be reported by mainstream news should be off topic, per the guidelines. Such stories are often a step above celebrity gossip, yet rarely touching the bar of having intellectual merit.

This gets a pass in the community all the time because people are emotionally attached to some celebrities or their work, especially if there is any overlap with the hacker or tech scene, or if nostalgia is involved. Which is understandable, but still leads to exactly the sort of low-effort discussion we're supposed to avoid.

With Hawking, the announcement of his death should still be off-topic even though one could use the thread as a springboard to discuss physics. Death itself, however, brings no new or interesting phenomenon worth discussing.

Rather than posting articles about his (or anyone's) death, it would be better to post articles related to someone's work, and mention the death in the comments.