In a few billion years our Sun is going to go caput, but as that happens, it’s actually going to expand and engulf several planets. But while that’s a long way off, astronomers were able to finally see that phenomenon happening in another star system.
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00:00In a few billion years, our sun is going to go kaput.
00:06But as that happens, it's actually going to expand and engulf several planets.
00:10But while that's a long way off, astronomers were able to finally see that phenomenon happening
00:15in another star system.
00:16The event occurred some 13,000 light years away, when the star ran out of hydrogen.
00:20When that happens, the other elements that make up the star expand rapidly, transforming
00:25it into a red giant.
00:26At that point, stars can grow as much as 1,000 times their previous size, with their diameters
00:30stretching far out into their systems.
00:32The resulting low-energy burst from the star is the indicator such an occurrence happened.
00:36And while astronomers have only ever captured the immediate aftermath of such an event,
00:40this time they caught it right as it happened.
00:43This is what it looked like as the planet ceased to be, with its orbit completely shut
00:46down as it sank into the ever-expanding star.
00:49With the co-author of the study, Dr. Ryan Lau, saying about the data,
00:53These observations provide a new perspective on finding and studying the billions of stars
00:57in our Milky Way that have already consumed their planets.
01:00When this happens in our solar system in 5 billion years, the sun is expected to expand
01:05all the way out into Mars orbit.