Earth is likely to face a grim ending: it may be swallowed by the Sun, or ripped into pieces—an outlook scientists say is plausible, though it lies in the extremely distant future.
According to a new study by astronomers from University College London and the University of Warwick (UK), in roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will exhaust the last of the hydrogen fuel in its core. Once that happens, our star will enter its late-life phase and expand into a blazing red giant. During this transformation, Earth is unlikely to escape a catastrophic fate.
The Sun Will Turn into a Massive “Red Monster”
At present, the Sun is in the main sequence stage, where inward gravity and outward pressure from nuclear fusion balance each other. But that stability will not last forever. Eventually, the hydrogen-burning process will come to an end.
When the fuel runs out, the Sun’s core will begin collapsing under its own gravity, pushing temperatures high enough for helium atoms to fuse into carbon. This shift releases tremendous energy, causing the Sun’s outer layers to swell dramatically and cool at the surface—turning it into a red giant that could become 100 to 1,000 times larger than it is today.
At that point, nearby planets—including Earth—would no longer remain in the relatively safe zone they occupy now.
Edward Bryant, the study’s lead author, explains that an extremely powerful gravitational effect known as tidal forces would gradually drag Earth into a tighter orbit.
“Just as the Moon generates tides on Earth, planets also exert a tidal influence on their star. As the star expands, that interaction becomes much stronger,” he said by comparison. Bryant notes that these tidal forces would slow Earth down, shrink its orbit, and ultimately send it spiraling into the Sun—or tear it apart before it even reaches the solar surface.
The findings, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, are based on an analysis of nearly half a million stars that have recently left the main sequence stage.
By using computer techniques that detect tiny changes in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it, researchers identified 130 gas giant planets orbiting close to stars at this evolutionary stage—33 of them previously unknown.
Notably, the older the star (especially those that have already expanded into red giants), the rarer it is to find planets still surviving in close orbits.
Bryant concludes: “This is strong evidence that once stars leave the main sequence, they rapidly pull in nearby planets and destroy them.”
Earth’s Chances of Survival Are Nearly Zero
Current simulations suggest that when the Sun becomes a red giant, it may engulf Mercury and Venus, then expand toward Earth’s orbit.
Co-author Vincent Van Eylen (University College London) said: “The question is whether the planets in our Solar System will survive. We find that, in many cases, planets do not.”
Even though Earth orbits farther out than Mercury and Venus, that distance does not guarantee safety. The researchers emphasize that even if Earth avoids being swallowed, life would still be doomed—because the planet’s surface would turn into a scorching, uninhabitable inferno.
As Bryant told the Daily Mail, the Sun’s expansion would dramatically increase the radiation reaching Earth, driving surface temperatures to extreme levels and making the planet incapable of supporting life.
As the Sun grows, the rising heat would cause the oceans to boil away. Intense solar radiation would strip the atmosphere entirely. Earth would become a dry, lifeless rock—desolate and barren.
Even in the most optimistic scenario—where Earth is not consumed—humanity would have vanished long before.
No oceans. No air. No life. No trace left of any civilization that once existed.
What Happens to the Solar System When the Sun Dies?
Astronomers say that after reaching its maximum size, the Sun will enter its final stage: it will shed vast amounts of material into space, forming an enormous cloud of gas and dust.
The expelled matter could account for up to half of the Sun’s total mass.
What remains at the center will collapse into a white dwarf—small in size, but extraordinarily dense.
The surrounding clouds of gas will glow around the white dwarf, creating a spectacular structure known as a planetary nebula—a radiant, haunting “halo” in space, marking the Sun’s final farewell.
The idea of the Sun consuming Earth sounds like a doomsday movie plot, but it is simply how stellar evolution works.
This won’t happen for another 5 billion years—so far in the future that, if humanity still exists, it may have evolved into something entirely different, or left Earth long ago in search of a new home.
Still, the research carries an important message: it highlights how fragile our planet is—and how everything, even the Sun, has a finite lifespan.