If the sun, ceased to exist suddenly, would the earth lose the gravitational effects or sunlight first?

Answer 1

Since light and gravity propagate at the same velocity, the effects of both light and gravity would occur simultaneously.

Answer 2

As many of the above, the effects of gravitation loss would occur first. The light takes approximately eight minutes to reach the Earth, something that does not happen for gravity. "Photons are the fastest particle" says another answerer. Yes and no. The speed of light is a constant, meaning that everything changes around it; length decreases and time increases. Photons therefore do travel faster that all other particles *with a size and mass*. There is a particle called the graviton (surprise, surprise) which mediates gravitation, but has no mass or size (bear with me) and therefore, like the photon, does not experience time, allowing it, again like the photon, to travel either backwards or forwards in time.
Anyway, the effects of gravitation would be experienced before the effects of the loss of light, partly because gravitation defines the spacetime in which events take place, albeit not by humans because we feel relative to the Earth (except for massive things, maybe like this). The Earth would be propelled along a tangent to the point at which gravitation was removed (as in the removal of centripetal force) before the light loss would become apparent.
Most of this answer is correct, but some (like the answer, per se [light after gravitation]) are my own logical reasoning, which may not be totally correct.

Answer 3

Your question is really about the propagation speed of gravity. It's still debated among scientists. The 1993 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to a team who reached this conclusion based on astronomical observations. Watch for results from the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) projects, and the work of Joseph Taylor and Russel Hulse at Princeton.

Gravitation is an extremely weak force, very hard to measure. It's hard to set up an experiment with changing gravitational fields. I wouldn't call it conclusive yet, but I think most physicists would place their bets that gravitation propagates at the speed of light.

So, to answer your question, I would place my bet that both phenomena would be experienced simultaneously.

Answer 4

The light Waves, as U may know , travels at the speed of 300000000 m/s ( pls check the no of zeroes and pardon me if they r not correct )

And the gravitational force is supposed to be 'spread' by the gravitational waves. And these gravitational waves are supposed to move with the speed of light too.

( I wrote and stressed supposed as this is a proposition of modern theoretical physics and although seems reasonable true and acceptable , world still needs a experimental proof for it )

So when the sun vanish suddenly both the light of sun and the gravitational effect of sun vanish from the earth SIMULTANEOUSLY.

In that situation dark will cover all the earth ( The artificial sources of course keep giving light for some time ).
Earth gradually radiate all its heat to outer space to become very very cold.

And absence of gravitational attraction of sun make earth (and all other planets) move in a straight line path with respect to its original ellipse like path which is a tangent to that ellipse path.

Answer 5

our gravitaitonal pulls will change before the sunlight does. it takes approximately 8 minutes for the sunlight to be transmitted from the sun to the earth. What i assume would happen is the earth would graviatate towards jupiter, which is the next biggest celestial object in our system.

Higher the mass the higher the gravitational field strength.

Hope this helps. O i am not a physics expert so i wouldnt quote me on this

Answer 6

well since is only takes about 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth ...it would take just as long from the time the sun ceased to exist til last particle of light reaches earth and then total blackness.......the gravitational effects would happen within days if not sooner than that.....the earth would see an immediate change in course......as soon as the sun disappears we would slowy drift of our orbit path in a straight line into oblivion until we r pulled into another gravity field aroung another star around which would be our new orbit parth...seeing as the closest star is about 4 light years away....humans would not only parish because of the darkness and cold tempuratures but humans would never make a trip that last for trillions of miles into deep space...kind of a given

Answer 7

aside from giving us mild and the gravitational pull wherein we orbit around it, the sunlight has no actual gravitational effects upon us. We bounce and are available returned off simply by earth and its length

Answer 8

Sunlight first but it would take us 8 minutes to realise because that's how far away the sun is. Thus, it takes 8 minutes from the time of the event to it reaching us. We would feel a little wobbly too for a while as the mass of Jupiter starts to have an influence on our orbit. It would take a number of years though before we flew off into space or crashed into another planet, as they all would be out of orbit.

Answer 9

Both would be felt at the same time.
The sun would go dark and the earth would fly off at a tangent both at the same time,about 8 minutes.

Answer 10

Lol... I love questions like this. Have a star!

The effects of sunlight would be felt first, in my opinion it would take a while for the earth to stop spinning etc