R. Hurt/K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)
Ask any astronaut or astronomer and they’ll tell you: Space wants to kill us. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the extreme life threatening cold and hot temperatures, or extinction-level gravity events, or the enormous radioactive explosions, or the planets that rain lava. Pretty much everything out in the twinkling cosmos has our number.
Luckily, those of us on Earth are safe from the dangers of space (well, most of us anyway). However, there are some things that we won’t ever be able to avoid—like the inevitable moment when our planet is swallowed up by the sun. While that reality is still billions of years away, it’s still something that astronomers want to research to better understand the lifespan of stars like the one in the center of our solar system.
Scientists have long known that stars tend to balloon millions of times larger than their original size towards the end of their lives. In the process, they swallow up any and all matter around them including planets. However, it wasn’t until recently that they were actually able to see a star mukbang in action.
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