Dying Star Mimics Our Sun's Death

coondoggie writes "In about 5 billion years, our Sun will face a nasty death. Scientists with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics this week released dramatic new pictures of a dying star much like the Sun, about 550 light-years from Earth. According to the researchers, Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that if it were in our solar system it would swallow every planet out to Mars and cook the asteroid belt. The star has started to pulse dramatically, beating like a giant heart with a period of 408 days." The research team produced a video of the pulsating star, using infrared images captured via very long baseline interferometry.

Comments

Do we care?

[iamacat]

We'll be long gone - either in spacial or temporal sense - in a tiny fraction of that time. Even if there are no asteroid impact, killer viruses and so on, we will eventually deplete all natural resources - including ones need to make solar cells and wind turbines - and release enough long-lasting pollutants to make life unsustainable. So, an interesting astronomical curiosity, but no impact on our distant descendants. Now lets go work on being gone spacialy.