Later, a hot 'wind' radiates outward from the star's exposed core at 100 times that velocity. The high-energy wind plows into the billowing gas shells and forces them to glow like a neon sign. The twisting stellar wreckage has become a planetary nebula. A planetary nebula is an old star's last gasp. Sculpted into elaborate, multi-coloured shapes, the ballooning cloud soon dwarfs the star that gave it birth.
Some planetary nebulas are a thousand times larger than our solar system.
The Sun will create a planetary nebula, too. As it does so, its core will collapse into an earth-sized cinder called a white dwarf. Slowly cooling like the embers on a dying campfire, the Sun will end its days as a blackened, burned-out hulk in space. Blame it on gravity. Think of the Sun as a giant nuclear furnace.