In about five billion years the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel and swell into a red giant star over a thousand times its current volume before shrinking back into a white dwarf. No-one is quite sure whether Earth is close enough to be swallowed up by a bulging Sun or whether it can avoid a fiery death. But now an international team has spotted a planet in a distant solar system that appears to have survived its star’s red-giant phase, even though its original orbit would have been similar to Earth’s (Nature 449 189).
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