What would happen to Earth’s orbit if the sun disappeared?

DW (English)

If the sun suddenly disappeared, darkness as deep as a moonless night would descend on Earth a few minutes later. Our planet would also leave its orbit.

Transcript

00:00 [music]

00:04 If the Sun were to suddenly disappear,

00:06 when would the Earth leave its orbit?

00:12 Albert Einstein was fascinated by gravity

00:15 and how it functions.

00:18 With a mass around 333,000 times that of Earth,

00:22 the Sun dominates gravitational matters in our solar system.

00:27 The many celestial bodies that make it up

00:29 revolve around the Sun.

00:34 Einstein described how gravity works

00:36 in his theory of general relativity.

00:40 It says that heavy objects warp space-time.

00:44 With its enormous mass, the Sun bends it so much

00:47 that the planets begin to move in a curving orbit around it,

00:52 just like the Moon does around the Earth.

00:56 Einstein also showed that nothing can move faster than light.

01:00 It rips through space at nearly 300,000 kilometers per second.

01:05 According to the great physicist's theory,

01:08 gravity propagates at the same speed.

01:11 Researchers were able to prove this in 2015.

01:15 After decades of trying,

01:17 they were finally able to measure gravitational waves

01:20 for the first time.

01:23 Earth orbits the Sun at a distance of about 150 million kilometers.

01:29 It takes just under 8 1/2 minutes for its light to reach our planet.

01:35 So if the Sun were to suddenly disappear,

01:37 we wouldn't know about it on Earth until about 8 1/2 minutes later.

01:42 Then the sky would suddenly go as dark as the deepest night.

01:47 Because gravity also travels at light speed,

01:51 the Earth would also leave its orbit at that moment

01:54 and begin whizzing through space at 30 kilometers a second,

01:58 illuminated only by the light of distant stars.

02:02 In the far future, who knows?

02:05 Maybe gravity from one of them would then pull in our orphaned planet.

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