What is the future of the sun?

The Sun won’t last forever. Just like other stars in the Universe, the Sun was born and it will die. At 4.6 billion years old, the Sun is almost halfway through its life. In about 5 billion years time it will start to change, as it burns up the fuel that kept it shining bright for so long. It will expand to become a type of star called a red giant, before shrinking to become a white dwarf.

Life of the Sun

The Sun is a medium-sized star. The Sun was born in a nebula – a giant cloud of gas and dust. The Sun is currently middle-aged. It is about halfway through its life. As it runs out of fuel, the Sun starts to collapse, but this causes it to heat up again. The outer layers of the Sun expand to turn it into a red giant. The Sun throws off its outer layer of gas and dust. The Sun will spend its final days as a white dwarf, a star about the same size as Earth.

Eating Mercury

The red giant Sun will become so enormous that it will gobble up the planet Mercury!

 

Picture Credit : Google