Earthed

What will happen to the planets after the Sun turns into a white dwarf?

I've read that after the Sun's fuel burns out, it will turn from a red giant into a white dwarf. I know that by that time, Venus, Mercury and maybe even Earth would have became part of the solar matter, but I was wondering what happened to the other planets. Were they dragged into the Sun when it collapsed under it's own gravitational pull?

Public Comments

1. Lol, I don't plan to be around in a few billion years to find out^_^.
2. cold dead icy spheres
3. When the sun turns into a big red giant, the inner planets will burn to a crisp, with no life left whatsoever. The other planets might freeze since the sun is keeping them warm (idk) and the planets might get out of the gravitational pull of the sun and fly off somewhere else in space....idk.
4. i dont know for sure but my guess would be that they will still be there but they will be colder, in a few billion years more the sun will be a black dwarf and the remaining planets will just keep orbiting in complete darkness, kind of depressing
5. The Sun will swallow the inner planets. There will be some heat on the outer planets.
6. nothing ..science will be so ahead the USA goverment will built a brand new more powerfull SUN that will last for 1000 years
   
   also they will built another back up SUN on the opposite side to keep gravitatttional force balanced..
7. Yes, you are right: Mercury and Venus will be swallowed, and according to the latest calculations, earth will be dissolve in the sun's outer atmosphere as sun becomes a red giant - in 7,59 billion years by the way. (According to Schroeder & Smith, 2008).
   
   
   
   All the other planets will survive. For a limited time their ice (Mars, the giant planet's moons, the Kuiper belt objects like Pluto and Eris) will melt. But than it will freeze again.
   
   
   
   However, this is not the end of the story. Perhaps a star will pass by nearly. If so, the dead solar system will be disrupted. The planets will be thrown in outer space, lost by the sun (most probably) or they will fall into the sun or into the neighbour star.
   
   
   
   If this doesn't happen, the planets will spiral into the white dwarf sun because the lose gravitational energy with every orbit, i.e. emit a small amount of gravitational radiation.
   
   But until this happens, the universe has to be 10^20 years older than today.
   
   
   
   (And it is not sure if it last that long: It could collapse or could be teared apart, more precisely: its matter - in a Big Rip.)