Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found forensic evidence, in unique ultraviolet spectral "fingerprints," that a red giant star is merging with a white dwarf companion star. The clue is that the dwarf — a burned-out cinder of a collapsed Sun-like star — has had its outer hydrogen and helium layers stripped down, exposing subsurface carbon. This showed up in the spectrum of the white dwarf. Also, the white dwarf is rare in that it is slightly more massive than our Sun, which is uncommon for dwarfs. Most dwarfs are a fraction our Sun’s mass. This doomed, more massive dwarf is hotter than most other white dwarfs.

Our Sun will run out of fuel and collapse down to a white dwarf in roughly 5 billion years. But there’s nothing lurking out there that will eat it.