Our Sun is in the middle age of life, and that's a good thing for us here on Earth. But in a few billion years, when the Sun runs out of hydrogen to fuel its massive fusion furnace, it will balloon into a massive red giant, engulfing the inner planets, including the Earth, before it shrinks again into a white dwarf. Is that the end of our solar system? Maybe not. Although they might get a little (okay... a lot) scorched, the outer planets might actually survive the experience in one piece. German researchers have found the first planet orbiting a white dwarf star, so there appears there's a future for planets when their star becomes a red giant.