The Sun's future
The evolution of a Sun-like star, as derived from ESA's Gaia mission data release 3, in the so-called Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
The Sun is illustrated at its current age of about 4.6 billion years, and the evolutionary pathway it will follow given that a star’s temperatures and luminosity varies with age as it burns through its fuel. Our Sun will reach a maximum temperature at approximately eight billion years of age, then it will cool down and move right along this diagram while also slowly increasing in size. It becomes a red giant at around 10-11 billion years of age, and then rapidly increases significantly in size. The end of the life of the Sun happens shortly after, where it will eventually finish as a cool dim white dwarf.
This gif is a clip from a longer animation – watch here.
