There is no “if”, there is only “when”.
The Earth will most likely be long eaten before our Sun becomes a white dwarf.
It’s a damn shame, ain’t it?
Old Earth, gone before its time. But that’s how it goes with these big burning bastards in the sky.
They live fast, die slow, and take a good chunk of their neighborhood with them when they go.
See, our Sun, it’s like a furnace.
It’s got this shitload of hydrogen in its belly, and it’s burning that stuff up every damn second.
That’s what keeps us warm, what keeps the plants growing, what keeps the whole damn shebang going.
But it’s not going to last forever.
In about five billion years, give or take, the Sun’s gonna run outta hydrogen. It’ll start burning helium instead, getting all bloated and red in the face.
That’s the red giant phase.
It’ll puff up like a goddamn balloon, swallowing Mercury and Venus whole.
Earth might get lucky and escape that fiery fate, but it won’t be pretty.
The oceans will boil, the land will scorch, and everything that ain’t dead already will be soon enough.
But that ain’t the end of it.
The Sun’ll keep on burning, spitting out its guts until there’s nothing left but a tiny, white-hot core.
That’s the white dwarf. It’s about the size of Earth, but it’s got the mass of the whole damn Sun packed into it. It’s dense as hell, and it’s hot as hell, but it ain’t got the juice to keep burning.
So, the white dwarf’ll just sit there, slowly cooling off over billions of years.
And what about Earth?
Well, if it ain’t already been swallowed up by the red giant, it’ll be a frozen husk by then.
The atmosphere will be long gone, the oceans will be ice, and the only thing left will be the bones of a dead planet.
The Sun gives life, and the Sun takes it away. That’s just the way it is.
