Sun is going through a mid-life crisis. Here’s how long it has before dying

The European Space Agency found that the life-giving star is around 4.57 billion years old which amounts to it being in its middle age.

The Sun, which scientists predict to be about 4.57 billion years old, is currently going through a midlife crisis, a study has found.

Currently, the star is bursting with solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar storms, India Today reported. According to the latest information from Gaia spacecraft — which has been making the most accurate map of the universe — has now revealed the future of the Sun.

Evaluating the data, the European Space Agency found that the life-giving star is around 4.57 billion years old which amounts to it being in its middle age. While it continues to be healthy, fusing hydrogen into helium, as the new solar cycle peaked last week, there were 17 coronal mass ejections and nine sunspot explosions.

Scientists, however, calculated that the hydrogen in the Sun’s core will run out and trigger changes in the fusion process resulting in the star to lower its surface temperature and change into its next phase which is a red giant star.

Currently, researchers are trying to find out exactly how the change occurs, it’s mass and chemical composition. “We wanted to have a really pure sample of stars with high precision measurements,” India Today reported Orlagh Creevey from Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur of France, as saying.

He had analysed data from the Gaia spacecraft and studied stars with surface temperatures between 3,000K and 10,000K — the longest-lived stars in the Galaxy which can reveal the Milky Way’s history.

“If we don’t understand our own Sun and there are many things we don’t know about it how can we expect to understand all of the other stars that make up our wonderful galaxy,” Orlagh said in a statement.

The European Space Agency stated that the Sun will reach the end of its life when it eventually enters its last phase and turns into a dim white dwarf.

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