Our Star's Future

In roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel and swell into a red giant, growing large enough to swallow Mercury and Venus. Earth may barely survive but will be scorched lifeless long before the Sun reaches its maximum size.

After the red giant phase, the Sun will shed its outer layers as a planetary nebula and collapse into a white dwarf about the size of Earth. This dense remnant will slowly cool over trillions of years, fading from white to yellow to red to black. Every star like our Sun follows this same lifecycle, making the night sky a gallery of stars at every stage of life and death.