Red Giant Stars Devour Planets; Earth Faces Similar Fate in 5 Billion Years

Across hundreds of thousands of star systems, NASA's TESS mission has quietly confirmed what physics long suggested: stars, as they age into red giants, consume the worlds that once orbited them in faithful silence. Among 130 planets identified in the grip of expanding stars — 33 never before catalogued — scientists now see a near-universal pattern of planetary destruction, one that places Earth's own distant future in sobering relief. In roughly 5 billion years, our Sun will swell to a thousand times its current size, and whether Earth is swallowed whole or merely rendered lifeless, the outco