And by later, I mean 5 billion years or so, you just might witness what happens to planet Earth when our sun enters its red giant stage of life. We orbit around a G-type star (yellow dwarf) we call the Sun. When such a star reaches the end of life, it has depleted the hydrogen needed to keep the core nuclear fusion going. The star begins to turn to other internal fuel sources, loses mass, the core gets hotter and the plasma atmosphere expands. Eventually, our sun will grow more than 200 times as wide as its present size. Continue reading →