Sol Sol , or the Sun , was the home star of the solar system , a planetary system about twenty - seven thousand light years from the galactic centre of Mutter ' s Spiral . History . The First Doctor was unfamiliar with Sol prior to his departure on Gallifrey . However , his granddaughter Susan Foreman learned of the existence of the solar system and Earth in her spatial cartography lessons . ( AUDIO : " The Beginning " ) When the Sun was a " young star " , a scientist lured the Umbra to himself , having brought them together with his immense guilt . He then used what the Twelfth Doctor guessed was a trans - warp tunnel , using the Sun as a power source , to send the Umbra from the scientist ' s planet into the Sun , where they survived the heat and " swam " for many years through the chromosphere . Millions of years later , the quadrillionaire Rudy Zoom spent ten years planning his expedition to circumnavigate the Sun in the sunship the " Pollyanna " so that Rudy could become the first man on the Sun . After the " Pollyanna " entered the chromosphere , the Umbra attacked the ship and began killing and devouring the " soul s " of the human s on board . With the help of Alice Dubrovnik ' s graviton inverter , the " Polyanna " was able to invert the gravity on board the " Pollyanna " " to the right degree " and also invert and " [ p ] ush [ . . . ] away " the heat — which also had mass and gravity — from the exterior of the " Pollyanna " . This caused the Umbra , whom the Doctor had lured to the " Pollyanna " s surface , to freeze to death . ( COMIC : " The Eye of Torment " ) Stealing a prototype stellar manipulator , the Eleven concocted an ultimately unsuccessful plot to ignite Sol and destroy the solar system in 1639 . ( AUDIO : " The Satanic Mill " ) For some time around 4009 , Tent City was located inside Sol ' s photosphere . ( PROSE : " The Book of the Still " ) Human scientists predicted solar flare activity would sterilise their homeworld of Earth and took measures to prepare for it . To this end , they left Earth in ships , amongst them Starship UK . ( TV : " The Beast Below " ) Space Station Nerva may have gone into service as a refuge for humans and other life in cryogenic suspension . ( TV : " The Ark in Space " ) In the 57th segment of Time the last humans left on Earth evacuated the planet because of the increasing danger that it would fall into the Sun . They fled to planets such as Refusis II ( TV : " The Ark " ) and Frontios . ( TV : " Frontios " ) The now uninhabited Earth was preserved by the National Trust and over the billions of years following was restored to a " classic Earth " before it was finally destroyed by the expanding sun ( TV : " The End of the World " ) in the year 5 , 000 , 000 , 000 . ( TV : " New Earth " ) Cultural and religious significance . In 100 , 000 BC a tribe of early humans worshipped Sol as Orb . ( TV : " An Unearthly Child " ) In Mexico circa the 15th century , the timing of a solar eclipse had great religious significance . ( TV : " The Aztecs " ) By the time humanity had become a space - faring civilisation , the Apollonian s worshipped the Sun as a god . According to Sandy Tanaka , the Apollonians had a prophecy , in which " [ i ] f the body of the Sun [ were ] ever violated , [ . . . ] ' the Eye of Torment ' [ would ] open . It [ would ] look down on humanity and condemn [ them ] . " ( COMIC : " The Eye of Torment " )