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Scientists know when our Sun will die. It won't be soon. It will be in 10 billion years. The scientists are from the UK. They say that in about 5 billion years from now, the Sun will turn into a "red giant". This is the science name for a star at the end of its life. When our Sun becomes a red giant, its centre will get smaller. Its outer layers will travel as far as Mars. This means Earth will burn and disappear. After our Sun turns into a red giant, it will become a bubble of gas and space dust. No humans will be on Earth when the Sun dies out. Humans will disappear in around one billion years from now.
The Sun is still young. It is just 4.6 billion years old. This means it is only around one third into its lifespan. A professor explained that: "When a star dies, it ejects a mass of gas and dust into space.…This reveals the star's core. By this point in the star's life, it is running out of fuel." He said it then turns off and dies. The professor was happy that modern science can calculate the age of stars and what will happen to them. He said we can work out what stars there are in distant galaxies. He said: "We have even found out what the Sun will do when it dies".
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