Jika matahari tiba-tiba tiada, adakah kita terus melayang-layang di ruang angkasa, atau kita akan terus mengorbit matahari yang hilang? If the sun were simply removed immediately, would we go flying off into space right away, or would we continue orbiting a missing sun? — Simon Patterson Burnaby, British Columbia Were the sun and all its matter to (impossibly) go poof we here on Earth wouldn’t have any inkling about its demise until some eight minutes and 20 seconds later. That’s because the sun’s gravitational influence travels at the speed of light, according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity and all experimental evidence to date. Therefore, at the same time that we see the bright light in our sky go out, eight-plus minutes after the fact, Earth would begin straying from its elliptical orbital path, continuing along in a more or less straight line. Other, far weaker sources of gravitational attraction, such as the moon and the solar system’s planets, would then govern the Earth’s new trajectory through the cosmos. Not that we’d enjoy the journey for long without our sun’s life-sustaining energy. — ADAM HADHAZY Discover.USA.December.2013
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:01:12 +0000
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