Will the Sun Ever Burn Out | We Asked a NASA Expert

Will the Sun ever burn out? Not quite, but it will change dramatically. Like all stars, it’s going through a life cycle powered by nuclear fusion. Right now, it’s halfway through its 10-billion-year lifetime. Eventually, the Sun will expand into a red giant, engulfing the inner planets, then collapse into a white dwarf — a small, hot, dim remnant of its former self. A NASA scientist explains what’s ahead for our star. Learn more about our Sun: https://nasa.gov/sun Producers: Scott Bednar, Pedro Cota, Jessie Wilde Editor: James Lucas Credit: NASA

What is said in the film

Will the Sun ever burn out? We Asked a NASA Scientist. Well, the Sun, just like the stars we see at night, is a star. It's a giant ball of super hot hydrogen. Gravity squeezes it in and it creates energy, which is what makes the Sun shine.

Eventually, it will use up all of that hydrogen. But in the process, it's creating helium. So it will then use the helium. And it will continue to use larger and larger elements until it can't do this anymore. And when that happens, it will start to expand into a red giant about the size of the inner planets.

Then it will shrink back down into a very strange star called a white dwarf — super hot, but not very bright and about the size of the Earth. But our Sun has a pretty long lifetime. It's halfway through its 10-billion-year lifetime. So the Sun will never really burn out, but it will change and be a very, very different dim kind of star when it reaches the end of its normal life. We Asked a NASA Scientist.

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