The Hubble Space Telescope, the largest built by mankind, has captured an impressive image that shows what the future of the Solar System will look like.
The photograph, disseminated by NASA, corresponds to NGC 5307, a planetary nebula that is about 10,000 light-years away from Earth. In the image, you can also see the constellation Centaurus, visible from the southern hemisphere of our planet.
A planetary nebula is the final stage of a star similar to the Sun; that is, our star will end his days in this way, and the change he will suffer will cause devastating effects on all the planets in the system.
NASA explains that “a star like our Sun, at the end of its life, will become a red giant” as a result of millions of years of nuclear fusion, which is the physical phenomenon that keeps the star shining, but it is the same process that “constantly tries to destroy the star”. Only gravity prevents the Sun from being destroyed.
“At the end of the red giant phase of a star, these forces become unbalanced. Without enough energy created by the fusion, the star’s core collapses on itself, while the surface layers are ejected out. After that, all that remains of the star is what we see here: bright outer layers that surround a white dwarf star, the remains of the core of the red giant star, “the entity details.
These outer layers will continue to move and cool over thousands of years until they dissipate, leaving a white dwarf with a faint glow.
The planets closest to the Sun, including the Earth, will be consumed during the red giant phase. The other planets will have important changes and the Solar System will be a colder place.