Clues To The Sun's Future In Ancient 'Solar Twin'
Artist's Rendition of the Life Stages of Sun-Like Stars Annotations in the illustration show the ages of the sun, plus two solar twins astronomers have studied. ESO/M. Kornmesser Been there, done that: The chemically similar star is almost 4 billion years older than the Earth's sun Sometimes it's kind of fun to look at a friend's older relatives, to guess how he'll age. In a new study, astronomers have done something like that by examining an 8.2 billion-year-old star for clues as to what our own 4.6 billion-year-old sun will be like in the future. The astronomers also examined the 2.9 billion-year-old, sun-like star 18 Scorpii to gather insight into what our own sun might've looked like at that age. The two stars allowed astronomers to guess how the chemical content of the sun changes over time. Meanwhile, a look at the older star's chemical composition suggests it may host a solar...