Any idea what will happen to the Sun in the future?? The Sun has been shining for about 4.5 billion years due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium. But, we all know that the hydrogen supply cannot last forever. The sun will eventually run out of fuel. That triggers the dramatic chain of events and the sun will undergo a radical change.
Once the hydrogen supply gets exhausted, the nuclear fusion in its core would stop. The core starts contracting under its own gravity and more importantly the outer shell swells considerably, which decreases its surface temperature and the sun becomes a giant red ball of gas – A Red Giant Star. The sun will swell up to such an extent that it will swallow all the inner planets including the Earth (It is estimated that in its red giant phase, the Sun will expand out to a radius of approximately 1 AU [AU – Astronomical Unit = 150,000,000 km], which is 250 times its present size). So that’s going to be the end of the Earth…Doomsday…
Good News!!! Fortunately for us, none of this is going to happen in the near future. It is estimated that the hydrogen fuel in its core will last atleast for the next 5 billion years. By the time all these happen, Mankind or any form of life, for that matter, might not even exist on Earth.
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