Between 5 and 7 billion years from now, our Sun is expected to die out. The hydrogen fuel that keeps it running will run out, and the star that gives us life will cool down into a white dwarf.
Of course, there is no need to worry about this, because this will happen in the distant, very distant future. Right now, the Sun is in the prime of its life: It’s about 4.57 billion years old and glows brightly by burning hydrogen and helium.
Still, scientists want to know what will happen to the Sun in the future. Because it’s so close and so bright, the methods used to study other stars don’t work on the Sun. Special telescopes and devices are used for this.
“If we don’t understand our own sun – and there is so much we don’t know about it – how can we expect to understand all the other stars that make up our wonderful galaxy,” said astronomer Orlagh Creevey of the Côte d’Azur observatory in France. says.
Creevey is also part of the European Space Agency’s effort to map the entire Milky Way galaxy in unprecedented detail. The name of the project is Gaia, and while they map our cosmic environment, they also determine what will happen to the Sun billions of years from now.
The team predicts that the sun will reach its maximum temperature in about 8 billion years, that is, in about 3.5 billion years, after which it will cool. However, it is among the findings that its size will continue to increase. After that, it will go extinct at about 12 million years old.
You can watch the Sun’s life map below.
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