can gravity be faster then the speed of light?

Question

why is it that the suns rays take 8 min to hit us on earth but if the sun was to explode the last light would hit us in 8 min but gravity would pull us away from the sun at a faster rate tus making gravity faster then light

Answer 1

I think the catch to your question is that "gravity would pull us away from the sun at a faster rate tus making gravity faster then light" is complete nonsense. Gravity is two objects pulling on each other. Gravity in and of itself doesn't pull anything anywhere, and it certainly doesn't pull two things away from each other, particularly if one of those two things has just exploded and no longer exists. If you are suggesting that the gravitational pull from the other planets would then pull us away from the ex-Sun, that might be, but the interaction between the remaining bodies in our solar system would be amazingly complex, not easily modelled, impacted by the force of the exploding star, and I see no reason at all to believe that it would cause the Earth to move out of orbit fast enough to escape the light coming from the ex-Sun.

Complete gibberish.

Answer 2

What you aretalking about is actualy due to centrifugational force and not gravity. They are opposites. Gravity pulls things while centifugational force pushes things away. The planet posses centrifugational force while orbiting round the sun but at same time sun exerts gravity to them thus not letting them go here where in space. When sun explodes then then gravitational pull of sun will not exist so planets will start moving freely or dash with each other due to their own gravity. And the most important a force can not have speed.

Answer 3

As far as we know gravity tavels at the speed of light. So if the sun exploded, we would still feel it's pull for 8 minutes. And in fact if it exploded, maybe longer since the mass would still be there. If it disappeared, it would be closer to 8 minutes. And inertia would pull us away from the sun at about 33 miles/second or so, not gravity.

Answer 4

Gravity travels at the speed of light. If the sun blew up this very moment it would take 8 minutes untill we were out of the suns orbit.

Excellent question by the way.

Answer 5

An experiment was conducted in 2003 by the National Ratio Astonomy Observatory that demonstrated the gravity travels at the speed of light.

Answer 6

You are considering us on earth as having a gravitational field that works toward moving us away from the sun. It is the kinetic energy in our planet that does this (due to motion) and has nothing to do with our gravitational field.

Then, there is an equation for a gravitational field, c2 = E/m, that shows this force to be a product of mass and energy. In that it has as in its formation the value of "E" (electromagnetic energy) it appears likely that the wave cannot move faster than what it is composed of.

Answer 7

The consept of gravity is not that of speed but of pull.
Think of gravity as a flat plane sometimes the plane curves into a point. this may pull and effect light but gravity doesn't move. It pulls.

Answer 8

the only time that I am aware of gravity being faster than light would be in a black hole.
And gravity is not faster than the light it is just so strong that light can not escape it.
Good question though.

Answer 9

No sorry, gravity waves travel at the speed of light.

Answer 10

the theoretical prediction of general relativity would say that the speed of gravity is exactly the same as the speed of light. but it is the object that changes the speed of gravity