Eli5: How is the Sun going to “swell” to the point that it engulfs Mercury Venus and Earth? Where is all of that extra matter coming from? Has this swelling already started?
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Imagine a money pit, the kind where people try to grab as much cash as they can before their time runs out, blowing dollars off the floor. Imagine it is weak and only blowing the money as high as your knees. This is the power level of the Sun fusing hydrogen into helium. In a few billion years from now, that hydrogen will have effectively run out. The Sun will shrink until the density and pressure is high enough to start fusing the helium. That gives more energy than the hydrogen fusing did, and in our imaginary money pit, it’s like the blower got cranked really high and now the money is reaching all the way to the top of the money pit tube. It’s still the same amount of dollar bills, but it’s getting floofed by all the extra energy, floofed so far that it reaches past Venus and possibly all the way to Earth.
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