What will happen to the Earth when the Sun turns into a red giant

According to astronomers, as the sun develops, it will reach such a size that it will gradually absorb the orbits of the planets surrounding it. Such an unenviable fate awaits the Earth.

Today, it is believed that the Sun and all nearby planets began to exist in a giant cloud of molecular gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago.

This is how the life path of low-mass stars, to which our Sun belongs, looks like. According to the existing system of classification of stars, our star belongs to the class of yellow dwarfs. Their life cycle is about 10 billion years.

Conclusions about the imminent death of the Earth in connection with the expansion of the Sun were made not only on the basis of theoretical knowledge. This is also evidenced by observations of other similar stars in our universe. In particular, the last object of research by astronomers was the red giant called W Hydra. This star has parameters similar to the Sun, about the same mass and energy of light. But W Hydra is much older than our star and has already reached the stage of the red giant. The Swedish astronomers who observed the red giant this fall found that W Hydra significantly increased in size and, expanding, absorbed the surrounding space, which included, by analogy with the Sun, the orbits of the Earth and Mars.

But do not get upset ahead of time. And there is plenty of it on our planet. According to experts, today the Sun is in the middle of its life cycle and about 5 billion years remain before the sad events associated with the disappearance of the Earth.