Solar Apocalypse: The Sun's Fiery Transformation

Stars like our Sun sustain themselves by burning hydrogen in their cores throughout most of their life cycles. However, once they deplete this hydrogen fuel source, they undergo a dramatic transformation, expanding into massive red giants, swelling to hundreds of times their original size, and potentially engulfing nearby planets. In the case of our Solar System, this transformation will eventually consume Mercury, Venus, and even Earth, a process expected to occur in approximately 5 billion years.

This animation illustrates the progression, highlighting how these sun-like stars evolve into red giants and eventually shed their outer layers, leaving behind a dormant core known as a white dwarf. Intriguingly, white dwarfs have the potential to host planets, and numerous such stars are scattered throughout our galaxy. Remarkably, prior to 2019, no evidence existed of surviving giant planets orbiting white dwarfs. The discovery of a Neptune-like exoplanet around WDJ0914+1914 represents a possible breakthrough, hinting at the existence of many more such exoplanets orbiting these unique stellar remnants.