if the sun suddenly "disappears" from our solar system, will the earth be thrown out of orbit instantly ?

Question

the crux of the question is" is gravity faster than light"?

Answer 1

The theory is that gravity, or magnetism, moves at a certain speed. The last I heard, that speed is still unknown but under study. Thus, if the sun disappeared the earth would remain in orbit at the "speed of gravity" and it would remain daylight at the "speed of Light." Which speed is greater is yet to be determined. However, my guess is that the speed of light is faster than the speed of magnetism.

Answer 2

Light has notihng to do with gravity.
Gravity is a force and light is energy.
Ur question is like..
SUppose u have a stone tied with a string and U r holding the string in ur hand n letting the stone move in a circular orbit around U.
Now if u switch off the light will the stone go outta orbit?

gravitational pull is like a string ..gravity originates cuz of masses of 2 bodies.

But yea if sun was removed from solar system earth will move like a stone will move if the string breaks.
If the sun stopped shining the earth will still move around the sun cuz the gravity will still be there.

Answer 3

It is believed that gravity is not faster than light and that the Earth would continue orbiting the former location of the Sun for another 8 1/3 minutes.

Answer 4

In General Relativity, which is the best theory of gravity we have, the effect of gravity does not and cannot propagate faster than light. Any violent event that significantly re-locates stress-energy (that is to say, mass and energy, the source of gravity) will cause changes in the shape of the space time manifold (that is, the gravitational field, sort of) that propagate no faster than the speed of light. Note that since stress-energy is conserved, you cannot make it "disappear", you have to move it, and you cannot move it faster than light.

The best you could do, as far as suddenly re-locating the mass of the Sun, would be to initiate a spherical explosion of the Sun, where all its mass was ejected in a sphere at nearly the speed of light. (This is, in fact something like a supernova.) When that sphere reached the Earth's orbit, there would be a sudden change in gravitational force, and the Earth (assuming it survived the shell of solar material flying past it) would fly off in a straight line, tangential to its orbit.

Answer 5

Strictly the effect of gravity is supposed to be instantaneous!Let me get to the problem systematically. Let us assume that Sun disappeared instantaneously.[Strictly mas of the sun is 2*10^30kg..cannot go in to thin air!]. Due to this we find the dynamic balance of forces on Earth is disturbed.There is no driving force which was responsible to drive Earth in an elliptical orbit.What ever the compound velocity of Earth, in at that instant,Earth will continue in a straight line in space. It will continue endlessly till it enters the gravitational field of some other star. Meantime,due to absence of Sun's radiation and breaking down of oxygen Co2 cycle, all life forms will perish and Earth will be a frozen mass.Depending on its initial conditions of entry it may take either an elliptical,parabolic or a hyperbolic orbit[ with eccentricity less than 1, equal to 1, or greater than 1 respectively]. If it went in to an elliptical orbit and if distance from star and environmental conditions were conducive the ice caps will melt and life forms of the same or different type may evolve!

Answer 6

Although I have no direct evidence to support my feelings about the answer, I suspect that Earth would continue to "orbit" until the warped space surrounding the (former) Sun "relaxed," and I sense that the "relaxation" process would occur at the speed of light and no faster.

The most sensible discussion of this question is found in Answers D.04 - D.07 at http://omicron.felk.cvut.cz/FAQ/articles/a803.html, where the notion of "graviational waves" traveling close to the speed of light is paramount.

However, the link below suggests that gravitational waves DO travel MUCH faster than light, as fast as 20,000,000,000 c!! This result is from empirical evidence of the study of binary pulsars in space.

It is important to note that physicists are currently studying the problem using very sensitive experiments (LIGO and Virgo), but evidently no conclusion has yet been reached about the speed of gravity. I'm sure more information will be available soon!

Hope this helps!

Answer 7

According to Einstein, gravity is actually due to the curvature of space produced by the mass of an object. Therefore space would flatten were the sun removed from the equation. The gravitational influence of the other planets would then not be counteracted by the sun, so my guess is the Earth's inertia would keep it moving, but that it would no longer "orbit" the sun.

Answer 8

As metioned prior, if the sun were to disappear instantly, Earth would continue to move in a tangent to the position relative to its orbit when the sun's gravity was eliminated. Yes, we would be like asteroids, comets, etc. We would be called extrasolar planets.

This also discounts any effect of gravity from other planets and the amount, if any, of "reverberation" of spacetime from the sun disappearing so quickly.

Answer 9

one million) the sunlight's gravity pulls all the planets and different gadgets in the direction of it. yet all the orbiting bodies have momentum and for this reason their inertia does not enable them to fall in the direction of the sunlight yet purely orbit in a circle. 2) confident, each and every merchandise that has mass (no rely how huge) could have an effect on earth. however the smaller an merchandise is or the farther away it is the fewer that effect is. 3) as I reported above, all different gadgets. Mars, Jupiter, comets, even different stars could have a minute effect. however the biggest effect by making use of a few distance is by making use of the sunlight.

Answer 10

It is theorized that if the sun were to suddenly disappear, the Earth, and all the other planets, would continue flying through space in a tangental fashion relative to their orbit.