if nuclear fusion in the sun's core stopped today, would the sky be dark in the daytime tommorrow?

Answer 1

Definitely not.

If all the fusion in the sun stopped, so that there was no light coming from the sun at all, then of course you would think that it it would be just a few minutes before the sun appeared dark. But you said, the fusion in the sun's core. Obviously if the core stopped but the outer surface of the sun continued to radiate, then we might not notice much difference at all. Also, there are the issues with gravitational heating and radiation which could create a lot of light, and the other issue of the physical structure of the sun being maintained by the energy of the fusion.... it's pretty complicated!

I think the real question here is, how long does it take light energy which is generated in the core of the sun to reach the surface of the sun and be radiated off towards us. The answer is, a surprisingly long time. In fact, millions of years.

Why?

The interior of the sun is extremely dense. So, if light is generated by a fusion event deep in the sun core, the light is immediately absorbed by the dense cloud of surrounding atoms. Then reemitted, then reabsorbed many billions of billions of times. So,the energy from a deep core event will not reach the surface of the sun until millions of years after the initial fusion event that actually released it.

So, we aren't going to worry about the Sun going out, right?

Answer 2

No. The energy generated as high energy photons at the suns core today bounces around for about 100000 years before it reaches the surface as a photon of visible light. The core is that dense and the sun that big. So it wouldn´t get dark juuust yet.
Also the pressure from the photons is what is keeping the sun from collapsing in on itself. And if fusion for some unknown hypothetical reason isn´t possible the gravitational crunch would still generate lots of light for a very long time as it would heat the sun up by billions of degrees. In fact if the sun was only generating light from gravitational heating it would shine on for 100 million years. Before fusion energy was discovered to be the suns power source gravitational crunching was the most favored theory for the suns luminosity.

Answer 3

If nuclear fusion in the solar's center unexpectedly stopped, interior approximately 2 seconds the finished mass of the solar could fall down in on itself and then rebound in a ask your self wave of super value. The solar could grow to be a nova, with the ask your self wave traveling outward at some million/3 the fee of sunshine. approximately 26 minutes later, the ask your self wave could attain the earth, right this moment stripping away the earth's environment and oceans and heating the crust to incandescence. The sky could certainly be dark in the daylight hours day after today with the aid of fact there could be no environment to scatter the sunshine. each and all of the previous solutions are incorrect.

Answer 4

No........ the Earth would not exist tomorrow!
Why? A star like the sun "works" because the star's outer mass is pushing inwards and the intense fusion reaction in its core is pushing that mass outwards, keeping the star "balanced". The mass of the star is essentially the only thing allowing the Sun to keep on the fusion process. Remove that, and the star would explode! (Or, if the Sun were about 20 solar masses larger, it would form a black hole instead.......)

Answer 5

NO. The photons created in the sun's core by nuclear fusion can actually take about a million years to work their way to the surface, due to the extreme density of the solar material.

Answer 6

If the fusion in the core of the sun were to stop suddenly, which wouldn't happen, it would simply collapse in on itself. The out layers would cool rapidly. But realistically it would have to burn out, which would take thousands or millions of years to happen.

Answer 7

It would take only 8 minutes for the sky to be dark because the distance between the sun and the earth is 8.31 min at light speed

Answer 8

Definetly. I sun is not able to prepare its energy than sunlight will end reaching earth surface in 500 seconds and will appear dark. But don't panic sun will keep glowing approximatly for next 500 billion yrs.

Answer 9

We wouldn't know for nine minutes, then it would remain dark forever.

Answer 10

no there is the speed of light or something like that that affects it