# If the Sun were to suddenly disappear... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 7, 2018, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757 "2018-12-07T18:35:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/41 "2018-12-10T12:25:39Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/42 "2018-12-10T16:26:37Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Since they’d all be moving away from where the sun had been, they’d mostly be moving further apart, dispersing over a much greater region of space over time. As a first-order approximation, where the planets don’t attract each other but just run on straight trajectories after the Sun vanishes, I wonder how likely you are to get a collision. The Earth would certainly eventually cross the paths of the objects in the Asteroid Belt; how likely would a collision be then, given the low density of material there to begin with and the ever-increasing volume over which it is spread? ISTM that an asteroid impact, while unlikely, is far more likely than a planetary collision. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/43 "2018-12-10T17:07:19Z")
> [@snoe](#): > > [Randall Munroe lists several other upsides here](https://what-if.xkcd.com/49/): Reduced risk of solar flares…Dead people aren’t in danger from solar flares. Improved satellite service…Dead people don’t need satellite service. Better astronomy…Dead people don’t use telescopes. Stable dust…Dead people don’t “place dust”-They _become_ dust. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/44 "2018-12-10T17:28:20Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > As a first-order approximation, where the planets don’t attract each other but just run on straight trajectories after the Sun vanishes, I wonder how likely you are to get a collision. The Earth would certainly eventually cross the paths of the objects in the Asteroid Belt; how likely would a collision be then, given the low density of material there to begin with and the ever-increasing volume over which it is spread? ISTM that an asteroid impact, while unlikely, is far more likely than a planetary collision. It’s just like _The Wrath of Kahn_. Too many people think in 2-D. You have to think 3-D. The orbital planes of Earth and all these other things are generally different. We are unlikely to cross the orbit that an asteroid _used_ to have. They are also moving faster than us. So they start moving out of the Solar System faster than we are moving to where they _used_ to be. It’d be just the ones with oddball orbits that’d have even a remote chance and there’s far fewer of those. Plus there’s the distances. These oddball ones are _very_ far apart. Once the Sun goes away, they’ll move even further apart as they spread out. Getting smacked by something good sized vs. the Sun disappearing? The latter is going to be what’s on people’s minds as they freeze to death. Space is big and cold. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/45 "2018-12-10T17:41:50Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > No one’s really mentioned it would also be dark, with no daytime and no moonlight either, possibly because its too obvious. > > Presumably power supplies could run for a few days or perhaps weeks on stored fuel, and vehicle lights would work; owners of those little give-away hand-pump torches would become the new kings of this night-bound world, and that lady who runs the scented candle and souvenir store that i’ve never seen any customers in its new queen. > > Could the world or any nation grapple with the situation sufficiently to reorganise itself to rely on fuels in a land of perpetual dark. Maybe not such a problem in the depths of the coal mine, but conveying it, burning and rationing it to provide power for the things that matter, all probably needing to be done in the first seven days. Everything would mess up big time. For example, with a few weeks of no sunshine, temperatures fall, any exposed oil pipelines and refineries would find that oil, especially crude, would thicken to a sludge and then a tar. Hydroelectric dams of course would stop producing in short order from icing. I heard of one place in the fa north of Canada where they had to put heaters on the propane tanks because it would liquify enough at -40 that there was no gas pressure… Oceans freezing? Remember that until global warming, pack ice used to regularly expand fairly far south of the arctic circle in some locales, depending on ocean currents - Hudsons Bay still freezes over completely in winter. Once everything goes to hell, and hell freezes over, good luck organizing any major construction project like “Insulate the refinery”. Disorganization and chaos would be the enemy of good planning; plus - is there enough insulation for all the projects anyone would plan? Good luck in availability of necessary resources would be the decider between survival and death, the majority result would be death pretty soon. But, this reminds me of the story of what to do when you are caught out in the open with a polar bear. Polar bears eat seals, but first pick them up with their jaws on the neck and shake them to break the neck, so they can’t get away while being eaten. So if you are caught out in the open, lie face down and put your hands over the back of your neck - that way you’ll live an extra 5 seconds while the polar bear bites off your hands. In the end, we are all screwed without the sun. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/46 "2018-12-10T17:49:44Z")
The end of mankind (and everything else). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/47 "2018-12-10T18:10:49Z")
Sales of refrigerators would drop, and Baskin-Robbins would go bankrupt. ---
**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:** [December 10, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/48 "2018-12-10T18:29:02Z")
**ftg** , the vast majority of asteroids are moving slower than us, not faster. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/49 "2018-12-10T18:43:45Z")
All the planets would lose orbital status and just go off in various directions into deep space or collide or, perhaps, go into orbit around Jupiter. Since, however, we would all freeze to death in a relatively short period of time, our tour of space would be all too brief. [**If The Sun Went Out, How Long Would Life On Earth Survive?**](https://www.popsci.com/node/204957) > [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/50 "2018-12-10T18:51:52Z")
How much battery power does the ISS have? If they shut down everything non-essential, how long would they last? ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/51 "2018-12-10T19:11:35Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > How much battery power does the ISS have? If they shut down everything non-essential, how long would they last? Try as I might, I couldn’t find an answer. However, they only need provide power for 36 minutes out of every earth orbit, so their storage capacity doesn’t have to be great. I can’t imagine that, even using minimal power, they would last more than a few days. Once depleted, the ISS would radiate its remaining heat into space much faster than the earth with an atmosphere would, so the end would come quickly. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/52 "2018-12-10T20:17:37Z")
I just had a scary thought. You know how cold Antarctica is right? The whole world will be like that but worse. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/53 "2018-12-10T20:21:02Z")
This is just the opportunity the McCain campaign has needed! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/54 "2018-12-10T20:22:16Z")
Alaskan cruises will take a steep dive, bikinis will just sit on the shelf, and hot toddies will become _very_ popular. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/55 "2018-12-10T20:36:38Z")
[\*\* Astronomers say they’ve found a rogue planet with no sun.\*\*](https://io9.gizmodo.com/astronomers-say-theyve-found-a-rogue-planet-with-no-su-1443571329) This is interesting. It appears to be a gas giant and not a rocky planet, though. It may simply be a wanna-be-star that wasn’t quite massive enough to ignite. Or perhaps, if it was orbiting far enough away from a blue giant star that went Super Nova, it was blown out of orbit instead of being incinerated. It’s doubtful we’ll ever know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/56 "2018-12-10T20:47:57Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I wonder, would the teams in Antarctica last the longest? They’ve got a good amount of supplies and are already set up to handle the cold. Would the pole cool at a slower rate than the rest of the Earth? How quickly would we reach mostly-consistent temperatures across the Earth? I suspect something like the crew of a nuclear-powered submarine that just left port, loaded to the gunnels with food, would survive the longest (as I understand it, attack submarine patrols typically run for 6 months). Or perhaps some survivalists in particularly-well-furnished underground bunkers. I don’t think starting out at one of the coldest points on the globe is a good recipe for survival as the temperature drops, regardless of how good of a coat you may have. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/57 "2018-12-10T21:04:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **ftg** , the vast majority of asteroids are moving slower than us, not faster. Ack. 2nd time I’ve done that here. I keep thinking like a rocket in orbit around the Earth. Fire the rockets to “speed it up”- it goes further out. But the energy gets used up climbing out of the gravity well. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/58 "2018-12-11T20:17:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Reduced risk of solar flares…Dead people aren’t in danger from solar flares. > > Improved satellite service…Dead people don’t need satellite service. > > Better astronomy…Dead people don’t use telescopes. > > Stable dust…Dead people don’t “place dust”-They _become_ dust. What about plaid suits? Would we still wear plaid? As for **Banksiaman** ’s query about “Could the world or any nation grapple with the situation sufficiently to reorganise itself…” I’d be putting my quatloos on Denmark, or perhaps the newly-unified Scandinavia. They’re used to being cold, and they seem to have their shit together already. Plus, nobody will think to scramble toward the North Pole when it starts getting cold. Not until it’s too late. But back to the OP: Sun disappears, we stop moving in a circle around the sun and instead, instantly, head off into space in a straight line. Do we feel that change? Or is the answer “nope” because of what **rat avatar** brought up–we’re already traveling in a straight line, only through curved space. In which case, Oops! The sun’s gone! Space ‘flattens out’ where the sun used to be. Does that go “boing” or emit any other sort of perceptible change to us? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/59 "2018-12-11T20:32:59Z")
Earlier, one of the posts listed the expected temperature changes as: “Within a week, the average global surface temperature would drop below 0°F. In a year, it would dip to –100°.” The average today is like 57°F. So, take whatever the temperature is where you’re at today, and subtract ~60°F in a week. All sorts of shit is going to start breaking in a hurry and pretty much everybody would be dead within that first year. No government is going to be able to react in time to save more than a paltry number of humans. ---
**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:** [December 11, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757/60 "2018-12-11T20:39:59Z")
In any sort of snowball Earth scenario, I’d put my money on the last survivors being in Iceland. They’ve already got crops growing in greenhouses under lights powered by geothermal energy. All they’d need to do would be to add a bunch more insulation, and leak-sealing adequate to hold in 1 atmosphere of pressure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-sun-were-to-suddenly-disappear/825757.md?page=4)