The
Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, and should live in its current
state for another five billion years
or so. It’s roughly middle-aged—a glowing middle-aged body at the
centre of this
solar system.
Over the course of the next few billion years, the Sun will become
brighter and warmer, eventually making the
Earth uninhabitable. At some point, it will run out of hydrogen. It
will briefly expand, engulfing Mercury, Venus and the Earth.
In
its final stages of life it will shrink down and cool.
Love and Distance is a video, eight minutes and twenty seconds in length (the time it takes light from the Sun to reach the Earth). The video is an animation of sorts made by layering a series of still photographs. It imagines the lifespan of the sun from beginning to end.