Space & Astronomy

By T.K. Randall
July 1, 2026

Image: Coronal Mass Ejection
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / CC BY 2.0 (adapted)

When our star becomes a red giant in the distant future, many scientists believe that it will engulf and destroy the Earth.

While the Sun is still only around half way through its life as a main sequence star, exactly what will happen to it in the future has long remained an important topic of study.

Our star is 4.6 billion years old and will continue for another 4 to 7 billion years, but eventually, once the fuel (hydrogen) in its core has been used up, it will undergo some major and destructive changes.

At this time, it will begin to grow enormously - expanding to many times its current size and engulfing the inner planets Venus and Mercury, effectively destroying them.

The biggest question, though, is whether or not it will expand enough to engulf the Earth as well.

Previous studies had generally suggested that it probably would, but now a new analysis has found that the forces at play might just make it possible for the Earth to escape destruction.

While the Sun's tidal forces will pull our planet toward it, the shedding of its outer layers will reduce the gravitational pull, so determining what will happen depends on how these forces balance out.

Eventually, the Sun will shrink down and become a white dwarf - a much smaller stellar body that will continue to produce heat (though far less) for trillions of years.

Whether the Earth is engulfed entirely by the red giant phase, however, may be ultimately irrelevant as the surface conditions on our planet will make life all-but impossible by this stage.

Then, even if life survived that, once the Sun becomes a white dwarf the Earth would freeze.

Given that humans will have likely either been wiped out or evolved beyond recognition by then anyway, it's not something we're ever going to need to worry about one way or the other.

Source: Live Science

Tags: Earth, Sun