# If the sun stoped shining **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 29, 2010, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838 "2010-08-29T00:05:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/21 "2010-08-29T16:37:35Z")
I’m not worried I have a portable heater 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/22 "2010-08-29T18:04:39Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > > [@staticgrass](#): > > > > My question is, what would happen to earth if the sun suddenly stopped shining? > > The sun _will_ stop shining when it dies in ~5 billion years. Humanity may very well not make it that far but if it does, that’s the absolute Game Over mark unless we’ve colonized other galaxies by that point. Galaxies? Solar systems, you mean? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/23 "2010-08-29T20:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Did just the visible light stop? If so, then we’d still have heat which might let us last slightly longer but either way the situation would be grim. There’s this common notion that infrared light specifically is a form of heat, but really, all frequencies of light behave the same way. Any object above absolute zero (which is to say, any object at all) will emit light with a frequency proportional to its temperature (actually, a spread of frequencies around that). And anything that absorbs light, of any frequency, will heat up as a result. The only reason that we associate infrared particularly with heat is that most warm objects we’re familiar with (animals, fire, etc.) have a temperature such that the light they emit is mostly infrared. But the Sun is hotter than animals or most fires, so its peak frequency of emission is higher, in visible light. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/24 "2010-08-29T22:35:53Z")
We’d have to move. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/25 "2010-08-29T22:49:07Z")
> [@Hades](#): > > > [@Rigamarole](#): > > > > The sun _will_ stop shining when it dies in ~5 billion years. Humanity may very well not make it that far but if it does, that’s the absolute Game Over mark unless we’ve colonized other galaxies by that point. > > Galaxies? Solar systems, you mean? After 5 billion years, if we can’t fill a galaxy, we ain’t trying. > [@Lanzy](#): > > We’d have to move. Move to the tropics. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/26 "2010-08-29T23:06:14Z")
> [@These are my own pants](#): > > The science fiction story [‘A Pail of Air’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air) was about a very simlair scenario. I notice there’s a link to the actual story at the bottom of the page. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/27 "2010-08-30T00:39:47Z")
Owls will deafen us with their incessant hooting. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/28 "2010-08-30T01:58:57Z")
Within a week, the average global surface temperature would drop below 0°F. In a year, it would dip to –100°. The top layers of the oceans would freeze over, but in an apocalyptic irony, that ice would insulate the deep water below and prevent the oceans from freezing solid for hundreds of thousands of years. Millions of years after that, our planet would reach a stable –400°, the temperature at which the heat radiating from the planet’s core would equal the heat that the Earth radiates into space, explains David Stevenson, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology. Although some microorganisms living in the Earth’s crust would survive, the majority of life would enjoy only a brief post-sun existence. Photosynthesis would halt immediately, and most plants would die in a few weeks. Large trees, however, could survive for several decades, thanks to slow metabolism and substantial sugar stores. With the food chain’s bottom tier knocked out, most animals would die off quickly, but scavengers picking over the dead remains could last until the cold killed them. Humans could live in submarines in the deepest and warmest parts of the ocean, but a more attractive option might be nuclear- or geothermal-powered habitats. One good place to camp out: Iceland. The island nation already heats 87 percent of its homes using geothermal energy, and, says astronomy professor Eric Blackman of the University of Rochester, people could continue harnessing volcanic heat for hundreds of years. [http://www.popsci.com/node/24698](http://www.popsci.com/node/24698) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/29 "2010-08-30T02:31:12Z")
I would imagine the [tubeworms that thrive around volcanic vents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_tube_worm) at the bottom of the sea would survive until the deep sea froze. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/30 "2010-08-30T18:03:40Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The gravity may get weird if it disappeared. Why would it? It seems to me we would just continue on in a straight line, much like cutting the string on a tetherball. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/31 "2010-08-30T18:12:31Z")
> [@RedSwinglineOne](#): > > > [@gonzomax](#): > > > > The gravity may get weird if it disappeared. > > Why would it? It seems to me we would just continue on in a straight line, much like cutting the string on a tetherball. If the Sun just disappeared, then presumably we go into some complex orbit around the other planets, particularly Jupiter. I suspect there would be a possibility of colliding with some other planet, if the initial position was right, in which case, (1) any remaining life would end at that point, and (2) the Earth would take a bit longer to cool down. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/32 "2010-08-30T19:29:43Z")
The answer depends on what, exactly, happens to the Sun or the Earth. If we get flung off into interstellar space, the exact details would depend on how fast the Earth was moving away from the Sun. We might even move toward it and then away. In that case, it might get hotter at first, then colder. If the Sun goes out the way we think it eventually will, it would get much hotter on Earth. The Sun, like all Main Sequence stars that fuse hydrogen into helium, is gradually getting brighter as it ages. In about a billion years, well before it reaches the red giant stage, it will be hot enough to boil away Earth’s oceans. If, somehow, all the fusion reactions inside the Sun were to suddenly stop, and something prevented them from restarting (I think this was what the missile fired into the star in _Star Trek: Generations_ was supposed to do), the Sun would keep shining for about 10[sup]7[/sup] years. Photons that get created by fusion in the core of the Sun don’t come out right away. The core is so dense that they bounce around for about 10[sup]7[/sup] years on average before coming out. People who observe neutrinos from the Sun would know right away that something had happened, but we’d still get light from the Sun for another 10 million years. I don’t know of any way this could actually happen under the laws of physics as we understand them. > [@Desert Nomad](#): > > Did just the visible light stop? If so, then we’d still have heat which might let us last slightly longer but either way the situation would be grim. This can’t happen. Visible light and heat (infrared radiation) are produced by the same process of nuclear fusion in the core of the Sun. You lose one, you lose both. > [@gonzomax](#): > > The gravity may get weird if it disappeared. There probably would be some earthquakes. The Sun produces tides on the Earth (smaller than those produced by the Moon). As the Earth adjusted to the loss of those tides, there would be quakes. How bad they would be would probably depend on how quickly we were moving away from the Sun. Most likely, the Moon gets ejected away from us into interstellar space, but it’s possible that the Moon could collide with the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/33 "2010-08-30T19:40:23Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > … > > > [@gonzomax](#): > > > > The gravity may get weird if it disappeared. > > There probably would be some earthquakes. The Sun produces tides on the Earth (smaller than those produced by the Moon). As the Earth adjusted to the loss of those tides, there would be quakes. How bad they would be would probably depend on how quickly we were moving away from the Sun. Most likely, the Moon gets ejected away from us into interstellar space, but it’s possible that the Moon could collide with the Earth. Huh? You lost me there. How would changes in ocean tides produce earthquakes? Does the movement of ocean water affect faultlines? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/34 "2010-08-30T19:46:15Z")
It’s not just ocean tides-- There are rock tides, too. They’re not nearly as noticeable, since rock doesn’t flow as easily as water, but they’re there. ---
**Author:** ![SmithCommaJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@SmithCommaJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmithCommaJohn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/35 "2010-08-30T19:50:13Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > > [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > > > … > > > > There probably would be some earthquakes. The Sun produces tides on the Earth (smaller than those produced by the Moon). As the Earth adjusted to the loss of those tides, there would be quakes. How bad they would be would probably depend on how quickly we were moving away from the Sun. Most likely, the Moon gets ejected away from us into interstellar space, but it’s possible that the Moon could collide with the Earth. > > Huh? You lost me there. How would changes in ocean tides produce earthquakes? Does the movement of ocean water affect faultlines? [Tidal forces](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force) are most visible in their effects on the ocean, but they act on Earth’s crust, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/36 "2010-08-30T19:53:40Z")
> [@These are my own pants](#): > > The science fiction story [‘A Pail of Air’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air) was about a very simlair scenario. How extraordinary! I thought of that very story when I read the OP. I only had partial memories of it, and now with your welcome link, I have the whole reprinted story to read. Thanks, **These are my own pants**! ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/37 "2010-08-30T20:29:25Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Photons that get created by fusion in the core of the Sun don’t come out right away. The core is so dense that they bounce around for about 10[sup]7[/sup] years on average before coming out. People who observe neutrinos from the Sun would know right away that something had happened, but we’d still get light from the Sun for another 10 million years. The 10[SUP]7[/SUP] years estimate for the random walk of photons from the core to the surface of the Sun is a pernicious error that has been much repeated. The actual estimate of the time for a photon created in the core to reach the surface of the Sun is between 10,000 and 190,000 years, based on a weighted 2D random walk Monte Carlo simulation for solar density. The 10My number is apparently based on a mean solar density rather than an accurate model of the density at different radii, which gives an unduly short run length. If the mass and gravity field of the Sun suddenly disappeared, there would be significant effects as the lack of tidal forces (due to the gradient of the Sun’s gravity from one side of the planet to the other) was released. Although the Moon has more influence over tidal activity, the relaxation of the Earth’s crust would undoubtedly cause earthquakes and other seismic activity. The Earth-Moon system itself would stay together with only minor perturbation, but all of the planets and other Sun-orbiting objects would proceed along a course tangent to their orbit at the time of release. The likelihood of two planets colliding is so tiny as to be neglected. The influence of these bodies on each other would be negligible for any practical purpose, i.e. the Earth would not end up in orbit of Jupiter. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/38 "2010-08-30T20:52:37Z")
> [@Hades](#): > > > [@Rigamarole](#): > > > > The sun _will_ stop shining when it dies in ~5 billion years. Humanity may very well not make it that far but if it does, that’s the absolute Game Over mark unless we’ve colonized other galaxies by that point. > > Galaxies? Solar systems, you mean? _sigh_ Some people lack ambition. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/39 "2010-08-31T00:39:56Z")
Humans are pretty resilient but we would all eventually die. Even big aircraft carriers with nuclear reactors and food for several months sooner or later it will all come down to food. The cold will kill a lot of people but their are enough people in bunkers/submarines that the food I think will be what actually kills the last person ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838/40 "2010-08-31T00:46:36Z")
What about folks living in Iceland and growing food in greenhouses using grow-lights powered by geothermal power stations? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-stoped-shining/551838.md?page=3)