And now for the segue into a shower thought - so the first thing night side would notice is the Moon disappearing (if it’s in the night sky), but after that, how long before effects begin to suggest something is seriously wrong on the day side. Something tells me it will be sooner than the morning.
Cool writing prompt: Elusive Dawn
The first measurable thing that would happen is that we would stop orbiting the sun, since (counter to what my 12-year-old ufo-believing self thought) gravity also travels at the speed of light.
But not by much longer. People on the other side of the world or connected to satellites monitoring sunspots would notice pretty much immediately after the light ceases to reach the earth and would tell everyone else over the internet
Only if you believe in magic box or “radio”
No dude, it’s only a difference of 1.3 seconds, faster then the Internet unfortunately.
the other side of the world wouldn’t notice there suddenly being no light anymore if there wasn’t light in the first place.
they would notice that the moon disappeared though
Wouldn’t the planet rapidly start to cool? I think we’d be dead by morning
Atmosphere would hold the heat for a bit, the real issues will begin with food shortages because the crops won’t grow
Yeah but how long is a bit? Also, without the gravity center of our solar system, how long would it take for all the planets to start drifting off into the void?
A bit - probably weeks to months. For the second question - 8 minutes for the Earth, since gravity propagates at the speed of light
The moon also doesn’t emit it’s own light. It would take longer for the moon to “disappear” than it would for the sun but it wouldn’t be the whole night.
That’s a good way to infinite wishes.
I wonder how long it would take before you would feel it becoming colder
If you ever experienced a solar eclipse, you will feel drastically how much the temperature changes.
Even the difference between standing in shade and standing in direct sunlight on a sunny day is noticeable.
I wonder if we would feel the sudden disappearance of the centripetal force of the sun’s gravity.
After 8 minutes, almost certainly
Gravity isn’t a force, strictly speaking. Objects move along geodesics in spacetime (that’s basically a straight line along a curved surface), and gravity bends spacetime, and therefore also these geodesics, around massive objects. So you don’t actually get accelerated by gravity, that’s why you don’t feel anything during free fall. What we perceive as the force of gravity pushing us down, is the solid ground accelerating us upwards, when following the geodesic would have us fall instead.
So when the sun disappears, the geodesic that used to spiral around the sun suddenly straightens out, and the neutral movement, the new free fall, has the earth continuing in a straight line. You wouldn’t be able to feel that. What the other person said about tidal forces is true tho, it would likely cause worldwide tsunamis
i mean, if the moon is up there, the light first has to bounce off of the moon, and then back to earth, so yes, it would most definitely take longer…
This reminds me of Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven! Time for a reread.
But will we feel the shift in gravity/inertia as the planet starts moving straight?
This is the cutting-edge of my understanding so if I’m wrong somebody call me out, but I think because gravity is warping space-time and not actually pulling anything, we wouldn’t feel an inertia change. Our inertia would be maintained, but the space-time we’re going through would suddenly be shaped different, so we’d follow a new path
So would all the other planets, so there’d be a non-zero chance we’d smack into one of them. Most likely though we’d become a very, very cold rogue planet.
How do you figure? Space is fucking huge. I don’t see how any planets could collide.
yes, after 8 minutes
I know gravity moves at the speed of light. I’m just referring to the slight pull of the gravity and the sudden shift to traveling straight off instead of a circle.
All of that will only happen after 8 minutes, see this comment.
Earth has a circular orbit because space-time is curved by the mass of the sun. (Think of a large bowling ball on a trampoline, you can make a small ball travel in circles around it, and if there was no friction, it would go on indefinitely.) When the sun’s mass suddenly disappears (by pure magic, as this would violate many laws of physics), spacetime would flatten out, at the speed of light.
What part of “I know gravity travels at the speed of light” do you not understand, to make you think you’re explaining something to me?
the fact that you don’t understand how the pull of gravity wouldn’t disappear immediately
Lol. You’re a damned idiot. I’m not really sure you can “learn” basic reading comprehension, but maybe you’ll manage it someday.
yes I am the idiot
What about gravity? I know I read something about this once, but is gravity also limited to the speed of light?
Yep, it is. We’d stay in our orbit of the sun for 8 minutes after it vanished too
From what I know, particles that have a mass greater than 0 move below the speed of light and can never reach it. Particles that have no mass (every force is transferred via particles) move at the speed of light. So there is no way to have anything that is faster than the speed of light, not even forces.
But do we know that gravity is a force transfered by a particle yet?
But is a particle necessary for that?
That’s boring.
Can we just have the reverse, like a “When Day Breaks” scenario? At least its fun.
Teacher: I meant the global we. So it would average out to 8 minutes.
Someone at day will inform sun is missing to the people on night
A person can’t inform others faster than the speed of light.
Fraction of a second for transmitting information from one side of earth to other side. And teacher only said 8 minutes and the seconds are ommitted as there is always an error margin since distance from sun is not constant.
Also i assume signals are always sent from other side of the earth
But collectively nine women can have a baby in one month.
I believe we’d still be warm for those 8 minutes. We have an 8 minute grace period before having to do anything, then enough time to add sweaters faster than earth cools.
I was forced to calculate the black body temperature and radiation for the Earth, back in college by hand.
I decided for fun to zero out the sun from the equation to see what would happen.
My math came out to about -32°C average surface temperature.
Earth would become an ice planet.
I think you’d uh, need a bit more than a sweater in those conditions 😅
It’s sweaters all the way down. You have time to order from China shipped by boat before -32C happens. You’re just being a “save the sun” hippy climate alarmist /s. Energy company shareholders would benefit from high demand, so saving the sun is just selfish of you :P
I’m just imagining you shuffling out wearing six layers of different colored sweaters on the frozen tundra surface, lmao
I still like Bill Cosby. Fortunate that my mom always thought I should like sweaters and gifted me some.
We’re for the jobs the fossil fuels will provide.
So.
The Antarctic. Roughly. Everywhere. Including the equator cuz that’s not a thing anymore.
Are there any places that would be “warm” for any reason if you recall?
Like, I assume the oceans would survive until the core stops and the planet truly dies?
… so yes, the oceans could remain warm enough to harbor life still.
Throw in a “rawr :3” while you’re at it
it’s because light takes 8 minutes to get from the sun to us. and since gravity also travels at the speed of light our orbit would only change after 8 minutes.
