We all know the ending: everybody dies. Since our sun's birth 4.6 billion years ago, its core has been getting ever denser and hotter. It is now 30 per cent more luminous than at birth and it's only going to get brighter. Ultimately, life's fate is sealed - it will be fried by the sun's intense energy. Earth will once more be a dead rock. But let's not jump ahead quite that far. Take a few minutes to think about Earth's final chapter. What will be the last organisms to survive as the planet fries and where will they hide? What will our blue marble look like in its swansong millennia? Humanity will have vanished long before the final act, so we will never truly know - but that hasn't stopped researchers from making educated guesses about how it might unfold.
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