When the Sun dies, our solar system and everything in it, including Earth, will look very different. But only time will tell whether the planet we call home will be “swallowed” by our dying star or will manage to escape its clutches.

The inner planets Mercury and Venus are almost certain to be crushed and swallowed by the sun, according to a new paper titled “Long-Term Variability of Debris Passing a White Dwarf.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .

But even if Earth were to escape its star, unfortunately it would still not be habitable. On the plus side, it will be at least better than some of Jupiter’s moons, which an international group of astrophysicists say could displace and crumble to dust when the sun runs out of energy. After examining what happens when the stars of planetary systems like ours collapse into white dwarfs, they made a dire prediction about what our solar system might look like five billion years from now.

“It’s not clear whether the Earth can move fast enough before the Sun catches up and burns it, but [якщо це станеться] Soil [все одно] It will lose its atmosphere and ocean and will not be a very suitable place for live broadcasting,” said Professor Borys Gensike from the University of Warwick.

If our planet were swallowed by the Sun along with Venus and Mercury, this would leave Mars and the four gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) in orbit that would eventually become a white dwarf. The surviving asteroids and smaller moons would likely be shattered into dust before hitting the dead star, the research team said.

The Sun is currently burning hydrogen in its core, but when it runs out it will expand into a red giant and then become a white dwarf, the final state of stars after burning all their fuel. Studying white dwarfs is useful because it sheds light on various aspects of star formation and evolution.

Researchers in this study wanted to know what would happen to asteroids, moons, and planets that pass near white dwarfs. They found that the fate of these bodies was likely to be extremely violent and disastrous. They reached this conclusion after analyzing object transit (the decrease in star brightness caused by objects passing in front of them).

Unlike predictable transits caused by planets orbiting stars, transits caused by debris are oddly shaped, chaotic and messy.

Lead researcher Dr. from Naresuan University in Thailand. “Previous studies have shown that when asteroids, moons and planets approach white dwarfs, the immense gravity of these stars breaks these small planetary bodies into smaller and smaller pieces,” said Amornrat Aungweroywit.

The collision between these pieces eventually turns them into dust, which then lands on the white dwarf, allowing researchers to determine what type of material the original planetary bodies were made of. In this new study, scientists analyzed changes in the brightness of stars over 17 years to understand how these objects decay. They focused on three different white dwarfs that behaved very differently.

Professor Genzike said: “The simple fact that we can detect debris from asteroids, perhaps moons and even planets orbiting a white dwarf every few hours is impressive, but our study shows that the behavior of these systems can evolve rapidly, within a few years.”

“While we believe we are on the right track in our research, the fate of these systems is much more complex than we could have imagined.”

The first white dwarf studied (ZTF J0328−1219) appeared stable and “benign” for the past few years, but the authors found evidence of a major catastrophic event around 2010.

Another star (ZTF J0923+4236) was shown to dim chaotically every few months and exhibit chaotic variability on time scales of minutes during these dim states before brightening again.

The third white dwarf analyzed (WD 1145+017) behaves close to theoretical predictions, showing large variations in the number, shape and depth of passages, as demonstrated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2015.

Surprisingly, the transitions examined in this study have now disappeared.

“As the dust created by the catastrophic impacts of 2015 clears, the system as a whole is very slowly brightening,” Professor Gensike said.

“The unpredictable nature of these transits can drive astronomers crazy; one minute they’re there, the next they’re gone. This speaks to the chaotic environment they exist in.”

When asked about the fate of our own solar system, Professor Genzike said: “The sad news is that the Earth will probably be swallowed by the expanding sun before it turns into a white dwarf.

“For the rest of the Solar System, some asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and possibly some of Jupiter’s moons, may drift and come close enough to a possible white dwarf to undergo the grinding process we are investigating.”