Planets Orbiting Dead Stars Foretell the Solar System’s Far-Future Fate
In the distant future—about six billion or seven billion years hence—the sun will start to die, swelling up into a bloated red giant. In a span of several hundred million years it will blow away its outer layers, lose about half its mass and leave behind its überhot, überdense, super small core: a white dwarf.The inner planets will be toast when this happens. Mercury, Venus and most likely even our precious Earth will be literally consumed by the sun and vaporized as their once benevolent host star literally overruns and…