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Viktor T. Toth:
The Sun will continue to shine for an incredibly long period.
The Sun, together with the solar system, is roughly 4.5 billion years old, about one-third of the universe's total age. Over the coming billions of years, the Sun will grow brighter. Ironically, this will eventually cause a reduction in carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, which is bad news as it will lead to the extinction of plant life.
In 2.5 to 3 billion years, Earth's surface temperature will exceed the boiling point of water globally. In 4 to 5 billion years, Earth will be in worse condition than Venus today, with most of its water evaporated and its surface partially molten.
Eventually, the Sun will transform into a red giant star, expanding enough to swallow the Earth. Its luminosity will increase by several thousand times compared to its current output. Ultimately, after exhausting its nuclear fuel and shedding its outer layers into space, the Sun's core will settle into its final phase as a white dwarf. This star no longer generates energy through nuclear fusion but retains vast amounts of stored heat in a very compact space (with most of the Sun's mass confined to a volume roughly the size of Earth). As a result, it will cool down extremely slowly.
It will take many more billions of years for the Sun to cool from an initial temperature of hundreds of thousands of degrees to its current and below. Eventually, the remnant of the Sun will fade away, becoming a brown dwarf: a cooling, lifeless remnant of a star.
This post originally appeared on Quora. Click here to view.
