If Sol (the sun) disappeared instantaneously, a few things would happen:

1> nearly all light in the solar system would vanish. This would impact Terra (the earth) in about 4 minutes.
2> nearly all heat in the solar system would dissipate. This would impact Terra in about 4 minutes.
3> Sol's gravity would cease to be, causing all system matter to leave orbit. This effect is instantaneous.

But I'm an optimist. I just see that we no longer would need to wear sunscreen.

Re-read what I wrote. I said it would impact Terra in four minutes, not that Terra would freeze over in four minutes. Damn Terrestrials; don't even know the name of their planet.

In about 2 months , we would all be dead

If you're in the movie The Day After Tomorrow all you have to do is light a fire and while the rest of New York City--nay, all of New England--freezes over, you'll be okay.

The rest of us might have a day or so.

===

I call the earth Terra because that is its name. "The earth" is a nickname. I also call the moon Luna and the sun Sol.

Posted By: NeedAnswers

so how long will earth have before temperatures get so cold that humans start to freeze to death?

The Earth (or Terra/Terra, if you're Latin) is about 8 light-minutes away from the sun (or Sol/Sol), so the infrared waves would last 8 minutes after the sun actually ceased existence. How quickly the Earth would dissipate its existing heat I'm not sure about, although some scientists might have you believe that at the current rate of methane and carbon dioxide release, we should be alright for a few ... years!

Posted By: Fact totum

Perhaps thermically speaking, but with no light there would be no photosynthesis (at least not on a scale large enough to sustain the current population for long) so in a very short time we'd be out of food. Those people who don't think of mushrooms as food would be out in an even shorter time.

What are you talking about? Luna is a massive supply of cheese!

I think there would be a massive decrease in the population, but I don't think that would wipe all of us out. Artificial light would provide enough light to support some plants and provide food. Supplying those artificial lights with energy might be tricky, though - we certainly couldn't use solar power...

I don't trust anything you wrote.

This seems like a good question. Let's summarize what I just read -
Udo/Fact - Earth spins off this tangent.
Fact - No Photosynthesis.
Udo - There's only one intelligent person (family) in New England (haven't seen the movie).
English Guy - Lots of cheese in the moon!
English Guy again - could perhaps use artificial light to stimulate plant growth.
Beanz - Implosion will kill us. Don't trust Wikipedia.

Since you asked, I'll give you my opinion - the Implosion thing has got something going for it, but I don't know much about it. The cold will kill us if that doesn't.

That being said, males who have to shave twice a day will have a definite advantage over the others, and will have to mate in a frantic non-stop fashion with the females who have to shave twice a day, in order to sustain the species. This no-holds-barred orgy sounds like a lot of fun, but on second thought I'd rather be frozen in the instant glacier and be put in a museum whenever I'm re-exhumed.

On a new tangent, what do you reckon people would think if they found you, frozen in a glacier, ten thousand years in the future?

I think people would complain if they were drinking something with ice and inside the ice was a frozen person - I know I would.

10,0000 years? I think there will be. We might annihilate ourselves but I suspect there will be some population around. There will also be ice -- maybe just at the poles -- maybe just during the winter -- but there will be. You just wait and see.

They would probably display you in museum just like we would today, call us primitive, and laugh about the way we transport ourselves in combustion-engine cars while polluting ourselves. Then they would move onto the antique cell-phone exhibit. Then they would have to gross-out all of the little kid by describing cigarettes.

That reminds me. Has anybody else read about the change in the speed of light?

Yes, that's right: the speed of light in a vacuum is changing.

Just my 2c worth (and by no means am I a certified scientist etc) just a blogger!

I think if the sun dissapeared the planet temp would drop so quickly we'd all be dead within days if not hours. Our planet may be molten inside but that doesn't equate to terrestrial heat, and the sun is always heating the planet at least on one side. No sun quickly means no atmosphere and then heat loss. Even if you said that the planet would cool at a minimal rate, what drop in temp is there over night (12hrs)? 10 degC is not unreasonalbe? so in a 24hr period that's a 20DegC drop, how many days before you get to a deadly cold? 2? 3? by 4 days that's -40degC that's a quick death for most of the planet not ready for it, and another couple of days and the planet freezes over.

OH and I recall reading about 20 years back that the speed of light is slowing down. Seemed confusing at the time because the speed of light is supposed to be a constant? Now I realise that even constants might be relative.

I was curious why Udoboy thought the gravitational pull of the sun would dissapear instantaneously? I've not thought a lot about it before but would it really be instant? Do we know for sure that the force of gravity doesn't have a travel time?

Fact Totus, why do you think the atmosphere would retain heat for so long?

Something fundimental is the fact the atmosphere is driven by the sun, no sun, no ionisation, no evaporation, no cloud formation, no atmosphere. We all know how quickly it can get cold on a cloudless night, with no heat from the sun and heat loss would be accumalitive, I think it won't take more than days before the planet becomes uninhabitable (growing food would be the least of our concerns). What water are you going to drink when our ill-equipt infrastructure freezes over at -20deg C?

The temperature at night drops and then stabilizes -- it doesn't do a straight-line decline. If there were perma-night, the temp might develop a straight-line decline but it would be pretty gradual. The atmosphere is very good at retaining heat and the oceans have a huge stabilizing effect.

Posted By: TIMTIM77

[What water are you going to drink when our ill-equipt infrastructure freezes over at -20deg C?[/p]

I don't drink water. Fish f*** in it. I drink scotch and beer*.

-20 deg C? What other set of physical laws are we suspending beside the one that states water freezes at 0 degrees C?

What infrastructure are you referring to when you call it "Ill-equipped"? I think Obama has vowed that if he's elected President -- I mean when he's elected he'll push through legislation that will address this shortcoming -- he'll have giant iceburg melting devices created in case the sun Ceases to be. And it will be paid for by the rich, who use most of the water in the world.

*Usually not in the same glass.

Posted By: jwrundle

if the sun were to stop shining that would mean that it had collapsed in on itself creating a black hole therefore we would be pulled into it and be crushed to death very quickly

Utterly false. The mass wouldn't change at all and therefore the gravitational pull would remain unchanged.

I exercise as much as I can, but my body believes in the conservation of mass too much.

Posted By: Udoboy

Scientists have never been able to detect a time lapse in gravity. Then again, we've also never magically created or dissipated large masses all at once, either. But most scientists seem to think that the effect of gravity is instantaneous no matter the distance.

Not true. Although we're not supposed to trust Wiki, try looking up speed of gravity; it is a fact that if gravity were instantaneous, it would break the principle of relativity (which is quite widely accepted by the scientific community).

I took the question to mean the sun magically ceased to be where it is -- as if it were instantly, totally erased with no other concurrent effect.

Very intriguing thought. If/when that happens, all 9 planets would be shot off at a tangent.

Posted By: Haoest

all 9 planets would be shot off at a tangent.

True -- 'tangent' by definition, if I remember my 8th grade math. But would being 'shot off at a tangent' have any discernable effect on the inhabitants of Earth? I suspect not -- as long as we don't smash into some other space traveling body. I think the only change that would be apparent would be the stars would no longer apparently move in the way they have for billions of years.

However, maybe the way to think of this question is, instead of 'ceasing to be', asking what would happen if the Sun were suddenly extinguished. That way the mass is preserved and therefore the orbits of the planets would remain the same.

You mention 'all 9 planets'. I think we're down to 8, but that's not the relevant point -- every body that currently orbits the sun would be flung off, tangenntially, into deepest darkest space -- to use a little hyperbole.

It takes about eight:

From whose perspective?

If the sun ceased to exist the planet would not necessarily blow up as some of you might say. A few years back, I thought of something similar for my doctorate research paper. After many long hours, I came to a conclusion that my previous hypothesis, the "Godfather Effect" was incorrect on many fronts.

First off, the theory got it's name from my thought that the sun's gravitational pull sort of, "looked out after us," the way a crime boss might a shop owner. After an all-nighter, I realized that if there was such a force that could pull the Earth after the Sun had disappeared, wouldn't it have done so already? Surely it's pull couldn't be stronger than the Sun's, or it would have done so earlier [There is a contradictory theory to this which I will explain later.].

Another conclusion that I reached was that [under the assumption that the Sun's gravity shaped the Earth], there would be nothing to rip it apart like a ball of clay. You assume that as soon as the Sun is gone, the Earth will explode, but in actuality it would just shoot off into space like a bullet until it reaches another star or larger planet.

About the contradictory theory, I have disproved it in my published essay. If you go to the New York Public Library, ask to speak to Ms. Whitman and she will help you from there.

Posted By: Cody56

the Earth ... would just shoot off into space like a bullet until it reaches another star or larger planet.

You imply that the speed would change and that is certainly untrue. Only the trajectory would change.

Posted By: Cody56

I never said that the speed would change.

I didn't say you said it -- I said you implied it.

Although it probably will due to all celestial bodies in the Sol system at this time.

That is illogical.

However, you did catch me on my wording. It is impossible, or nearly, to curve a bullet after the trigger is pulled, and we most definitely cannot say that about our ill-fated planet. Earth would arc out like an arm of the Milky Way, and depending on the coordinates of Earth at the time the Sun disappears, there are many different outcomes.[/p]

Edit: Place this after the post below.

"arc out"?? no. It would go in a straight line on a tangent to the curve of its previous orbit.

The distance between the bodies and the relatively small size means the influence would be negligible. Some small wobbles. Newton would agree.