New Delhi, India

For years, we have known that our Earth will one day be swallowed by the Sun as it will balloon because of its extinguishing fuel. 

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However, a new study has highlighted the death of Earth and other planets may be more chaotic and violent than ever imagined by human civilisation.

As per the researchers at the University of Warwick, even if our planet gets swallowed by the Sun, other planets are likely to be 'crushed and ground to dust'. 

How will the Sun die?

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Sun, along with other similar stars, crush the hydrogen atoms into helium which generates heat and light under the forces of gravity.

There is a limited amount of hydrogen in all stars and when this begins to run out, the forces which help in keeping the star stable lose balance. 

After around five billion years, our Sun will begin burning in its core before it starts to inflate and grow more than 200 times its original size and the helium on its outer layers will start to burn.

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Once this happens, the Sun will leave behind a white dwarf which will be a remnant of the core of the Sun and will glow with residual heat as it cools down.

How will the solar system get destroyed after the Sun's death?

The University of Warwick's Professor Boris Gaensicke, speaking about the solar system's destruction, said, "The sad news is that the Earth will probably just be swallowed up by an expanding Sun before it becomes a white dwarf."

However, till now scientists do not know much about what will happen to the rest of the solar system once the sun turns into a white dwarf. 

The researchers looked into the fate of moons, planets and asteroids which will pass close to the white dwarfs by looking into the transits.

The researchers found that around the white dwarf stars, the transits were irregular and highly chaotic, which hinted at the fact that their future is likely to be violent and catastrophic.

Moons, asteroids and planets which come close to the white dwarf's dense core are shredded when they get pulled into smaller pieces by gravity. These pieces eventually get grounded into dust as they collide with one another.

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The dust continues to move around the dead star till it eventually disperses out into the universe. This is likely to be the fate of the many celestial bodies in our solar system which are not swallowed or destroyed by the expansion of the sun.

"For the rest of the solar system, some of the asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter, and maybe some of the moons of Jupiter may get dislodged and travel close enough to the eventual white dwarf to undergo the shredding process we have investigated," said Professor Gaensicke.

Meanwhile, Dr Amornrat Aungwerojwit of Naresuan University, Thailand, who headed the study, said: “Previous research had shown that when asteroids, moons and planets get close to white dwarfs, the huge gravity of these stars rips these small planetary bodies into smaller and smaller pieces.”

“Collisions between these pieces eventually grind them into dust, which finally falls into the white dwarf, enabling us to determine what type of material the original planetary bodies were made from," he added. 

(With inputs from agencies)