The planetary nebula NGC 6369’s blue-green ring marks the location where energetic ultraviolet light has stripped electrons from oxygen atoms in the gas. Our Sun, being a single star that rotates on the slow end of stars, is very likely going to wind up looking akin to this nebula after perhaps another 6 or 7 billion years. (NASA AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA))

This Is What Our Sun’s Death Will Look Like, With Pictures From NASA’s Hubble

Our Sun will someday run out of fuel. Here’s what it will look like when that happens.

The fate of our Sun is unambiguous, determined solely by its mass.

If all else fails, we can be certain that the evolution of the Sun will be the death of all life on Earth. Long before we reach the red giant stage, stellar evolution will cause the Sun’s luminosity to increase significantly enough to boil Earth’s oceans, which will surely eradicate humanity, if not all life on Earth. (OLIVERBEATSON OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS / PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Too small to go supernova, it’s still massive enough to become a red giant when its core’s hydrogen is exhausted.

As the Sun becomes a true red giant, the Earth itself may be swallowed or engulfed, but will definitely be roasted as never before. The Sun’s outer layers will swell to more than 100 times their present diameter.(WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/FSGREGS)

As the inner regions contract and heat up, the outer portions expand, becoming tenuous and rarified.

Near the end of a Sun-like star’s life, it begins to blow off its outer layers into the depths of space, forming a protoplanetary nebula like the Egg Nebula, seen here. Its outer layers have not yet been heated to sufficient temperatures by the central, contracting star to create a true planetary nebula just yet. (NASA AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI / AURA), HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE / ACS)

The interior fusion reactions generate intense stellar winds, which gently expel the star’s outer layers.

The Eight Burst Nebula, NGC 3132, is not well-understood in terms of its shape or formation. The different colors in this image represent gas that radiates at different temperatures. It appears to have just a single star inside, which can be seen contracting down to form a white dwarf near the center of the nebula. (THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA/NASA))