Here's what our sun will look like in 5 billion years - CNET

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If you have a time machine, I can't recommend setting it for 5 billion years in the future. That's because the sun will be riding off into the sunset about that time, having fried Earth in the process. The European Space Agency reminds us of the fate of all things with a fresh look at a fascinating Hubble image of a dying star.

The image comes from the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The camera worked from 1993 until 2009, but the ESA rereleased the dramatic look at a planetary nebula called Kohoutek 4-55 on Monday. It's a composite of three images taken over the course of two hours.

The nebula is created from the death throes of a star. NASA describes it as the "outer layers of a red giant star that were expelled into interstellar space." The colorful image highlights different wavelengths and gases. Red represents nitrogen gas, green represents hydrogen and blue stands for oxygen.

Hubble wows with stunning space images (pictures)

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