Sun will turn into planet nebula, this is how and when sun will die

Sun, the prime source of energy for our Earth will die some day after five billion years, approx, scientists say. And, what would happen then; is certainly a big question to think? Astronomers predict that it will turn into a massive ring of luminous, interstellar gas and dust, known as a planetary nebula which would put an end to lives, planets, stars and everything in the galaxy. Professor Albert Zijlstra and his team of astronomers from the School of Physics & Astronomy believe that the sun will convert itself into a huge ring of luminous, interstellar gas and dust. Researchers termed the phenomenon as planetary nebula which will mark the end of 90% all stars active lives and traces the star’s transition from a red giant to a degenerate white dwarf. For years, scientists were uncertain if the sun in our galaxy would follow the same destiny. It was assumed that sun would have too low mass to create a visible planetary nebula.Researchers developed a new stellar, data-model that predicts the lifecycle of stars. The model was used to predict the brightness of the expelled envelope, for stars of different masses and ages. The research is published in Nature Astronomy. Prof Zijlstra explains: “When a star dies it ejects a mass of gas and dust – known as its envelope – into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star’s mass. This reveals the star’s core, which by this point in the star’s life is running out of fuel, eventually turning off and before finally dying. “It is only then the hot core makes the ejected envelope shine brightly for around 10,000 years – a brief period in astronomy. This is what makes the planetary nebula visible. Some are so bright that they can be seen from extremely large distances measuring tens of millions of light years, where the star itself would have been much too faint to see.” The research gave solution to query that has been confusing astronomers for a part of the century. Around 25 years ago astronomers found that it was possible to see how far away a galaxy was just from the appearance of its brightest planetary nebulae. In theory, astronomers took it as a type galaxy. Prof Zijlstra adds: “Old, low mass stars should make much fainter planetary nebulae than young, more massive stars. This has become a source of conflict for the past for 25 years. “The data said you could get bright planetary nebulae from low mass stars like the sun, the models said that was not possible, anything less than about twice the mass of the sun would give a planetary nebula too faint to see.” Professor Zijlstra added: “We found that stars with mass less than 1.1 times the mass of the sun produce fainter nebula, and stars more massive than 3 solar masses brighter nebulae, but for the rest the predicted brightness is very close to what had been observed. Problem solved, after 25 years! “This is a nice result. Not only do we now have a way to measure the presence of stars of ages a few billion years in distant galaxies, which is a range that is remarkably difficult to measure, we even have found out what the sun will do when it dies!” Prof Albert Zijlstra, Professor in Astrophysics at Jodrell Bank