The Sun is the source of life on Earth. It radiates light and heat, or solar energy, which makes it possible for various species to flourish on Earth. But what will happen when the giant star expends all its fuel? This is the subject of a study undertaken by a group of scientists and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.

The scientists have said in the paper that five billion years from now, the Sun will lose all its life-giving powers and become a red giant.

Giving details about the chaos that will follow, the researchers said that our home, the Earth, will meet an ignominious end. They claimed that Sun will devour Mercury, Venus and possibly the Earth.

To better comprehend a variety of outcomes following a planet’s engulfment by a star similar to the Sun, the researchers undertook three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. The size of the enveloped object and the phase of the star’s growth, they claimed, affect the results.

The stellar envelope may become unbound if the transferred energy surpasses its binding energy, according to lead scientist Ricardo Yarza of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Drag forces transfer energy from the planet to the star when the planet moves inside the star, he explained

This isn’t a new idea. Scientists have estimated that our Sun will “explode” within the next five billion years for quite a while now. A new study that researchers submitted to the Astrophysical Journal says that when it does, the Sun will destroy Mercury, Venus, and possibly the Earth.

The study submitted for publication in the Royal Astronomical Journal states that interactions of a planet or brown dwarf with the hot gas in the outer envelope of a sun-like star can lead to a range of outcomes depending on the size of the engulfed object and the stage of the star’s evolution.

The researchers simulated the flow near a planet that is being engulfed by a stellar envelope in three dimensions. Depending on the mass of the consumed object and the stage of the star’s life, they discovered that the sun’s consumption of its planets might further enhance the luminosity of a sun-like star by several orders of magnitude for up to several thousand years.

 Lead author Ricardo Yarza at the University of California, Santa Cruz explained that“As the planet travels inside the star, drag forces transfer energy from the planet to the star, and the stellar envelope can become unbound if the transferred energy exceeds its binding energy.” 

The level of that destruction is unclear, though. To better understand how the Sun will destroy the Earth, the researchers performed several 3D hydrodynamical simulations.

This helped them better understand the range of possible outcomes after a Sun-like star engulfs a planet. They found that it depends heavily on the planet’s size and the star’s current stage.

Because of the Earth’s size, some say it won’t be completely devoured, as Mercury and Venus are likely to be. However, the Sun will still make the Earth unlivable.

That’s because when the Sun enters its red giant phase it will lose all its hydrogen. When that happens, its border will expand multiple times over and engulf anything in its way. As a result, our Sun could destroy Earth.

The results of the study can be incorporated into future work to explore the effect of engulfment on the structure of the star.

The European Space Agency recently revealed that with an age of around 4.57 billion years, the Sun is currently in its comfortable middle age, fusing hydrogen into helium and generally being rather stable.

As the hydrogen runs out in its core, and changes begin in the fusion process, it will swell into a red giant star, lowering its surface temperature in the process.

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