Skip to main content

What Would Happen If The Sun Disappeared ???

If the sun suddenly blinked out of existence, you'd have nothing to worry about.—for the first eight minutes, anyway. After that, all hell would likely break loose. Still, it wouldn't be the instantaneous end to life on Earth that you might think.

When The Lights Go Down

Light takes roughly eight minutes to reach Earth from the sun. For that reason, if the sun disappeared, we'd still see it in the sky for another eight minutes. But what about gravity? The sun is the anchor point of the solar system—at 333,000 times the mass of  Earth, it exerts a hefty pull that keeps the planets locked in their orbits. If all that gravitational force disappeared, it would still take us eight minutes to feel it. That's because, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, gravity travels at the same speed as light.  

Chaos Creeps In Slowly

After that, though, Earth still  wouldn't be snuffed out. Electricity would still work, and it would still take up an hour for the light from our planets to be reflected back to Earth, so there would be a peaceful glow in the sky. With no sunlight, photosynthesis would stop, but that would only kill some of the plants —there are some larger trees that can survive for decades without it. Within a few days, however, the temperatures would begin to drop, and any humans left on the planet's surface would die soon after. Within two months, the ocean's surface would freeze over, but it would take another thousand years for our seas to freeze solid. By then, however, the atmosphere would collapse, radiation would seep in, and Earth would be an inhospitable wasteland drifting aimlessly through space.

 Lucky for you, the sun is showing no signs of disappearing any time soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sleep

Sleep is an important part of your daily routine—you spend about one-third of your time doing it.  Quality sleep – and getting enough of it at the right times -- is as essential to survival as food and water.  Without sleep you can’t form or maintain the pathways in your brain that let you learn and create new memories, and it’s harder to concentrate and respond quickly. Sleep is important to a number of brain functions, including how nerve cells communicate with each other.  In fact, your brain and body stay remarkably active while you sleep.  Recent findings suggest that sleep plays a housekeeping role that removes toxins in your brain that build up while you are awake.  Everyone needs sleep, but its biological purpose remains a mystery.  Sleep affects almost every type of tissue and system in the body – from the brain, heart, and lungs to metabolism, immune function, mood, and disease resistance.  Research shows that a chronic lack of sleep, o...
Post a Comment
Read more

20 Extraordinary And Inspiring Facts About The Universe

 "  The universe is so vast it’s extremely difficult to know the full extent of its complexities. Humans can only scratch at the surface of its immensity, but whenever we do we pick up remarkable information, and images, which are awe inspiring and baffling in equal measure. What we do know has been made readily available to the public thanks to the leading space exploration organizations, so here are 20 of the most intriguing facts for your reading pleasure. " 1. When you lo ok into the night sky, you are looking back in time   The stars we see in the night sky are very far away from us, so far the star light we see has taken a long time to travel across space to reach our eyes. This means whenever we look out into the night and gaze at stars we are actually experiencing how they looked in the past. For example, the bright star Vega is relatively close to us at 25 light-years away, so the light we see left the star 25 years ago; while Betelgeuse (pictured) in t...
2 comments
Read more