Red Giant Devours Planet

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Astronomers have observed a Red giant in the process of devouring one of its planets. something similar could happen to Earth when our Sun turns into a red dwarf in about 5 billion years from now.

Red giants are stars that have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores. When the star exhausts the hydrogen fuel, nuclear reactions in the core stop, so the core begins to contract due to its gravity. However hydrogen remains in a shell, just outside the core, which heats up, initiating fusion of hydrogen to helium. The higher temperatures lead to an increase in the star’s luminosity by a factor of up to 10,000. The outer layers of the star then start expanding and due to the expansion of the outer layers the energy produced in the core of the star is spread over a much larger surface area, resulting in a lower surface temperature  and a shift in the star’s visible light output towards the red, hence the name ‘red giant’.