A white dwarf star after ejecting its mass to form a planetary nebula. (ESO/P. Weilbacher/AIP)SPACE
MICHELLE STARR29 NOVEMBER 2020
Although the ground beneath our feet feels solid and reassuring (most of the time), nothing in this Universe lasts forever.
One day, our Sun will die, ejecting a large proportion of its mass before its core shrinks down into awhite dwarf, gradually leaking heat until it’s nothing more than a cold, dark, dead lump of rock,a thousand trillion years later.
But the rest of the Solar System will be long gone by then. According to new simulations, it will take just 100 billion years for any remaining planets to skedaddle off across the galaxy, leaving the dying Sun far behind.
Astronomers and physicists have been trying to puzzle out the ultimate fate of the Solar System for at least hundreds of years.
“Understanding the…
View original post 728 more words
Exposing the Big Game 