As long as I can remember, I’ve always been assured that our Sun will last a long, long, long time. 

Based on that theory, we have about five billion years left with our Sun as it is now.  The end of the Sun, in about four billion years, would make things on Earth quite uncomfortable. 

First it would be amazingly hot, then incredibly cold.  Bottom, line, we won’t be living here any more.  Now, if that were to happen tomorrow, we’re doomed.  However, I think most people assume that in five billion years, probably long before that, we’ll be cruising the stars and will find another suitable planet to exist on.  I mean, look how far space travel has advanced in a mere forty years.  All we be OK, right?

Well, apparently not so fast:

A massive star a million times brighter than our sun exploded way too early in its life, suggesting scientists don’t understand stellar evolution as well as they thought.

“This might mean that we are fundamentally wrong about the evolution of massive stars, and that theories need revising,” said Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

According to theory, the doomed star, about 100 times our sun’s mass, was not mature enough to have evolved a massive iron core of nuclear fusion ash, considered a prerequisite for a core implosion that triggers the sort of supernova blast that was seen.

 Now, they are quick to point out this involved a massive star, 100 times bigger than our Sun.  And, they are quick to point out that it probably was a very immature star that never fully developed.  However, given how sure they were that most stars follow a specific life cycle ( see above illustration ), this is still a bit unnerving.  If they may be fundamentally wrong about massive stars………