2357: in stark contrast to mankind’s hopes, violent astronomical events and the unregulated use of the new “solar extraction” technology have greatly accelerated the growth rate of our star during the recent decades. Now the Sun is nearing the end of its life cycle, and its fate -as any other star of its category- is to transform into a Red Giant.
This will result in an exceptional increase in volume that will cause it to engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth itself.
In the best-case scenario, the increase in volume will stop short of our planet’s destruction, but life as we know it would have already been destroyed due to radiation and the dramatic increase in surface’s temperatures.
Our only hope, as mankind, is to build a colossal interstellar spaceship that would allow a fraction of humanity to evacuate on a “new earth” we have located in the Trappist star system during our search for viable extrasolar planets.