If the sun were to just turn off instantly, how long would it take life on earth to die?

Question

I've heard it would only take minutes.

Answer 1

If by all life you mean mammals and "big" creatures, those that didn't have any protection would die very quickly. However, the earth's core and magma do a good job of creating a good amount of heat. In theory a few hearty survivors could live off of geothermic energy indefinitely but it wouldn't be a very hospitable place at all.

However, let's say that no one was able to get away with this. The earth would become (on the surface at least) a baren, frozen wasteland like pluto very quickly. There are plenty of "small" creatures (i.e. bacteria, viruses, mitochondria, etc.) that in theory might be able to survive indefinitely. Some think that that is how life arrived here in the first place, piggybacking through space on the back of a comet. In that regard, it's theoretically possible that life would continue for a great long while.
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Sorry, I just have to comment on these other answers.

1) Night/Day doesn't make a difference. If the sun in your hypothetical scenario simply "went out" it would immediately plunge our entire solar system into a deep space frigidness. It doesn't matter which side of the earth happened to be facing the sun at the time
2) Let's assume that in your scenario the sun simply turns off all exothermic resources and somehow maintains its mass. If it didn't, all the bodies in our solar system would "fly" out of their orbit and start revolving around the the most massive structure nearby, in our case, Jupiter.
3) Yes it takes light ~8 minutes to travel from the sun to earth. That's how long it would take us to even realize the sun was "out" the effect immediately thereafter would be felt almost instantly. Just think of the difference between walking from the sun to the shade on a summer's day. Then multiply that by several orders of magnitude.
4) I'd give the planet itself a few dozens of hours before cataclysmic events started to turn it into a barren rock
5) depending on where and how you secured yourself you could probably eke out a few months
6) If we had advance warning, we could use geotherminc power (fyi, the earths core is NOT heated by the sun as someone says) to keep alive
7) eventually, all life as we know it would die, save for some (possibly) bacterial forms that can survive without the ingredients we consider for life.

Answer 2

It takes 8 minutes until the sun's light reaches earth..
But the sun cannot "turn off" instantly.
Our sun is actually a small star, comparing to other massive and large stars, it doesn't "die" as a supernova. It ends its life by turning into a "red giant", when it had exhausted its Hydrogen fuel and is burning Helium and heavier elements. It will turn 10 times bigger, "swallow" Mercury and Venus, but will not reach to swallow earth. It will make earth boil and will evaporate all the oceans and life will no longer be able to exist.
But this will happen in 5 Billion years, so you don't have to worry about the sun "turning off instantly" :)

Answer 3

A few weeks! Why on earth would it take "a few minutes"? Half the planet lasts through 12 hour nights and nothing happens to us. Just imagine a night that never ends. It would take several days for it to dip below freezing in tropical and maritime areas. Plants would die, followed by animals and humans in developing nations, and finally other humans. Microorganisms and marine life might survive till the oceans freeze solid which would take weeks or months. Water near thermal volcanic vents may never freeze at all. Bacteria will survive there.
Oxygen levels will remain sufficiently high for months. It's starvation and cold that will cause mortality, not to mention war!

Answer 4

The lack of sunlight will happen around 8 minutes after the sun turned off.



How long would it take life on earth to die?

Live will evolve to be able to live without sunlight and withstand the cool surface temperature, but they will probably go underground and near ocean floors.




This once happened before, look at the Mammoth and the previous ice ages.

Answer 5

Just a few weeks. Until all the available food has been consumed by the survivors.
But I recall that some organisms live in the oceans from the energy of underwater volcanoes. They might perhaps survive.

Answer 6

7 days

Answer 7

The sun provides heat that keeps the core of the earth rotating. If the sun were to just go out, the planet would start shuting down instantaniously.

bye bye atmosphere.

Answer 8

not so minutes..
maybe a couple of days
cause we have alot of stored energy to use..


-we would die when we ran out of oxygen
-oxygen is only needed for creation of atp
-without atp our body cannot carry out any chemical processes therefore we all die.. the end

Answer 9

time=distance / velocity =150 000 000 000 m/300 000 000m/sec
=1500 / 3 = 500 seconds.

or t = 500 / 60 = 8.33 minutes
.

Answer 10

24 hours appr.