The Sun will engulf nearby planets such as Mercury, Venus, and Earth in its final years. Here’s what will happen.
Our sun is almost 4.57 billion years old and is currently in the middle of its life cycle. But when all good must come to an end, the Sun’s eventual extinction is unstoppable. Now, a new study has revealed that during its final years in the Solar system, the Sun will engulf nearby planets like Mercury, Venus and Earth.
Just a few days ago, a new study by the European Space Agency (ESA) revealed that the Sun has entered a middle age, estimated at 4.57 billion years. It appears that the Sun is also going through a midlife crisis with frequent occurrences of Solar Flares, Mass Launches (CMEs) and Solar Storms. The study was carried out with the help of data collected by the Gaia spacecraft.
The study concluded that the Sun will reach its maximum temperature nearly 8 billion years in the future, after which it will cool down and increase in size. It is during this expansion that the Sun will become a red giant, devouring neighboring planets, according to a study published in the Royal Astronomical Journal.
The study shows that interactions between a planet or brown dwarf and the hot gas in the star’s outer shell can lead to different outcomes depending on the star’s evolutionary stage and the size of the object. submerged.
The scientists studied this by conducting three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the flow in the vicinity of a planet engulfed in stellar crust. It is seen that the Sun’s luminosity increases exponentially as it engulfs the planet.
Lead author Ricardo Yarza at the University of California at Santa Cruz said, “As the planet moves inside the star, drag forces transfer energy from the planet to the star, and the stellar shell can become unaligned if The transfer energy exceeds its binding energy. “
