But the answer may not immediately appeal to you.

Unfortunately, our sun does not have eternal life. Scientists suspect that our parent star will last for another 5 billion years. After that, she’s out of fuel and will die. We can only speculate about what happens next to all the planets orbiting the sun. Though another planetary system is now providing a glimpse of our inescapable future.

Future of the sun

As a star ages, the hydrogen fusion in the star’s core stops and it swells. Then a red giant is created. When the star then blows away its outer layers of gas and dust, the core contracts, leaving a white dwarf. The star has come to the end of its life. This dying process has a major impact on the planets that orbit such a star, researchers suspect. Most planets will be drawn towards the star and swallowed. Our sun will also end up as a compact white dwarf in 5 billion years. But does the end of the sun also mean the end of our entire solar system?

planetary system

Researchers have in a new study discovered a planetary system using the Keck Observatory that may give us a glimpse into the predicted aftermath of our sun’s demise. The planetary system in question shows features of the expected fate of our solar system, when the sun has come to the end of its life in about 5 billion years. The planetary system consists of a Jupiter-like planet, with a similar orbit around a white dwarf star near the center of our Milky Way.

To survive

So it means that researchers here have noticed a planet orbiting a dead star. A Jupiter-like planet that is. And that’s interesting. “This evidence confirms that sufficiently distant planets are able to survive after the death of their star,” said study researcher Joshua Blackman. “Since this system is similar to our own solar system, it suggests that Jupiter and Saturn could survive the so-called red giant phase of the sun.”

A Crystal Ball into our Solar System’s Future from Keck Observatory on Vimeo.

Artistic impression of a star slowly dying. What remains is a hot, dense core; a white dwarf star. A gas giant similar to planet Jupiter orbits at a distance around the remnant, which miraculously survived the explosive transformation.

Soil

Our earth probably has a less rosy fate. “That’s because the Earth is much closer to the sun,” said researcher David Bennett. It means that our earth could be wiped out by the catastrophic demise of the sun. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all life is lost. For example, astronomers have already suggested that we seek refuge elsewhere in the universe. “If humanity were to colonize a moon of Jupiter or Saturn before the sun burns up the Earth, we could stay in orbit around the sun,” Bennet says. Although the question is how long we could endure the scorching heat of our sun down in that case.

Humanity

All in all, thanks to the planetary system, we now know a little better where we will be in a sloppy 5 billion years. Although the answer may not immediately appeal to you. The chance that humanity will survive the setting of the sun does not seem very great.

The researchers are not finished yet. Because in follow-up research, they hope to unravel how many other white dwarfs harbor intact planetary survivors. And NASA’s forthcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will do its part. This planet hunter will be able to very closely study planets orbiting white dwarfs. This will allow astronomers to determine whether it is common for Jupiter-like planets to escape the last days of their star, or whether a significant proportion of them face a fateful end.