LMR-054 · Stars
Red Giant
The Sun's swollen future. It will swallow Mercury and Venus.
§ A first look
§ Depths
Six ways into the same idea — from bedtime story to chalkboard. No order required.
L1 · Crayon
Told like a bedtime story.
For a curious 10-year-old. No jargon. Just a picture in your head.
Before a star like our Sun completely runs out of fuel, it has a strange middle-aged phase. It puffs up — really puffs up — until it's hundreds of times bigger than it used to be, and shifts from yellow to deep red. A swollen old star like that is called a red giant. When our Sun does this, in about five billion years, it will get so huge that its outside reaches all the way to where Earth is right now, and Earth will be inside the Sun. So make sure your long-term planner accounts for this. Move out. Bring a coat.
§ Strange but true
- 01When the Sun runs out of hydrogen, it will balloon out past Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.
- 02Red giants are cooler than the Sun, but so vast they outshine it a thousand times.
- 03Every carbon atom in you was puffed out by a dying red giant's outer layers.
§ From the field journal
Red Giant
"The Sun's swollen future. It will swallow Mercury and Venus."
— observed, sketched, not yet fully understood.
§ Nearby