--- title: "In About 10 Billion Years, Our Sun Will Harden Into a Giant Crystal" description: "In about 10 billion years, our Sun will likely harden into a giant crystal orb — a fate that will be shared with many other white dwarf stars." date: "2019-01-09" modified: "2019-01-09" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/our-sun-harden-giant-crystal" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "gaia" - "stars" - "Sun" - "the digest" - "white dwarf" --- # In About 10 Billion Years, Our Sun Will Harden Into a Giant Crystal ![In about 10 billion years, our sun will likely harden into a giant crystal orb — a fate that will be shared with many other white dwarf stars.]() *\Image: Alexandra/Pixabay/Tag Hartman-Simkins\* ## Giant Crystal In their old age, according to new research, white dwarf stars will cool into enormous and super-heavy crystal orbs — the likely fate of our Sun, in about 10 billion years. "All white dwarfs will crystallize at some point in their evolution, although more massive white dwarfs go through the process sooner," lead researcher Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, from the University of Warwick, said in a [news release](). "This means that billions of white dwarfs in our galaxy have already completed the process and are essentially metallic crystal spheres in the sky." ## Mega Orb The new research, [published today]() in the journal *Nature*, is based on observations from a European Space Agency spacecraft called [Gaia](). The Gaia readings showed an "overabundance" of white dwarf stars with colors and brightnesses that the objects' age or mass couldn't explain. But models show that the readings could be explained if the insides of the stars had already started to harden into crystals. ## Blast From the Past Eventually, the paper predicts, white dwarf stars will cool into huge celestial orbs with cores made of crystallized oxygen and exteriors made of a diamond-like carbon crystal — a wintry vision of the aging universe, and one that confirms a longstanding theory among astronomers. "This is the first direct evidence that white dwarfs crystallize, or transition from liquid to solid," Tremblay said. "It was predicted 50 years ago that we should observe a pileup in the number of white dwarfs at certain luminosities and colors due to crystallization, and only now this has been observed." **READ MOVE:** [Thousands of Stars Turning Into Crystals]() \[The University of Warwick\] ***More on Gaia:*** *[Scientists Discover a “Ghost of a Galaxy” Orbiting the Milky Way]()* ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()