How long would we live if the sun went out?

Answer 1

We would live for about 8-10 minutes. Light takes about 8 minutes to reach the planet from the sun. When the sun "goes out" it will not just stop like blowing up a candle, it will end with enough force to shatter the inner planets.

Now, if you want to go on the assumption how long would we live without the sun and the sun just disappeared? I'd say a few days. The weather would kill us on the planet, as temperatures would end up below freezing in just a few days. In a few more days, the temps would be several hundred degrees below zero across the planet.

Answer 2

Not too darn long I suppose, depending on what the circumstances are. I’m no expert, but here’s my best SWAG:

First of all, no sun= no life for the solar system; period. The sun will burn itself out over millions of years, very very slowly but not instantly. Perhaps it could implode or contract and create a black hole (unlikely) and swallow the other planets up... not 100% sure about that.

However, lets explore this scenario in the form of something similar that could actually happen. What if we assume that the sun didn't implode/ explode and the orbit of planets was not adversely affected (which it would be) and everything else was in tact and unaffected. However we on the surface of the earth could no longer be reached by the sun's energy. This would be similar to a 'nuclear winter' situation, or could be caused by large surface impact. The big factor to consider would be how prepared we were at the time. Assuming there were people that survived the global event (nuclear blasts, surface impact, what have you), the survivors would probably consist of those with access to underground living quarters, hydroponic food sources and renewable heat/ energy sources, like geo-thermic (volcanic) active land. Because the earth in endothermic, it can create its own heat via the planet core, which can be used for energy generation as well. Vital components of sunlight can be artificially generated via UV lamps and so on, so food could be grown in limited supplies. Furthermore, the plants can help produce oxygen as the earth's natural vegetation and oxygen renewal systems will eventually disappear. Perhaps underwater, deep sea plants could be cultivated that do not require sunlight, but again not quite sure about that part. (I am unsure of other atmospheric impacts of this scenario, so I won't go there for now. Let's assume these underground caverns are sealed and self-sustaining).
So, the these humans could survive indefinitely, barring the proliferation of diseases, violence, etc. Their survival would theoretically revolve around their ability to produce and maintain UV light bulbs as most of the earth's Home Depot's will be frozen solid ;-)

As for those poor souls that didn't have access to all that fancy stuff would all probably die as a result of freezing or starvation within the first month or so... depending on what resources they had.
Again, due to lack of formal education, I can only call this my best guess. At the very least it makes for a heck of a sci-fi story!

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It takes 8 mins for the light from sun to reach earth. With that being said, gravitation has similar affect too. If the Sun were to disappear magically, then for the next 8 mins, things will be normal on earth, but less than a second later, there wont be light and earth will be off the orbit.

Answer 4

Its hard to say how long we would live. If the sun went out it would take 8 1/2 minutes for earth to stop recieving light though.

Answer 5

1 year

Answer 6

hm depends if it exploded and in turn ended up burning us alive...in that case not very long, but if it was like someone just turned off the light i think it would take a few months or years...and maybe evolution would start taking place to let us evolve for a world without light, wouldnt really need to see anymore and our hearing and smelling would increase.

then earth would prolly end up out of orbit, and stick to like jupiter perphaps and that would of course cause the seasons to go out of wack....maybe another ice age.

basically i dont think we would live very long at all..at the most i think a year or two.

Answer 7

first off, the sun cant just "go out" like a light bulb, it will first grow to a size that will engulf every planet from it to the earth, due to the differences in its gravity, mass, and energy. it will become a red giant, then shrink to a white dwarf.

so, we would probably be cooked through until the entire earth was molten rock, sometime while it is starting to grow.

we will die from radiation and heat before it engulfs the earth.

Answer 8

ok we would live longer than it takes for light to travel to earth.. quite a bit longer, there is a lot of latent heat stored in the oceans and land which would take a while to radiate away... perhaps a month.. there are sufficient stores of food and energy to continue to live off of for quite some time.. nuclear energy, coal, oil. if we acted fast enough we could survive for quite some time under domes where we could grow food, and heat against the cold outside.. i am sure that some people world survive for years after such a calamity.

Answer 9

The second it went out, the earth would stop revolving, other astroids and objects in space would too, and everything will go out of control. Everything would have no orbit, so we everything would be in total chaos. And without the energy, earth would be ice cold and everything would die as fast as light is able to leave the atmosphere. Yay.

Answer 10

If the sun went out by going nova (a sudden explosion) the entire earth would be demolished instantaneously, thus, we would not live measurably longer than the initial explosion.