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[–] 14 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

The sun will turn into a red giant, then into a white dwarf surrounded by a planetary nebula. This will take billions of years. The white dwarf is basically the ash of a star. It’s a hot glowing remnant that no longer has nuclear fusion and so it’ll just glow for trillions of years slowly losing heat and light until it becomes a cold lump of carbon. The inner solar system will most likely be wiped out during the red giant phase as the sun will expand tremendously in size eventually reaching somewhere between earth and mars’ orbit.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Fun fact, while the earth will almost certainly be engulfed by the red giant phase of our sun, it will not be immediately consumed. A floating lump of rock will exist and continue to orbit the center of mass for millions of years inside the sun.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago*

    A problem i see with your theory is that the outer layers of the sun are plenty hot enough to melt rock and as soon as that happens the rock is probably just going to become part of the plasma making up the sun’s atmosphere.

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