Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
There is a property down at the subatomic scale known as quantum tunneling. What it does is allows subatomic particles to disappear and reappear at different locations. Of course, objects at the macro scale do not behave this way simply because there is not enough time in the life span of our universe to even consider the probability of such an event. But let us suppose we had an infinite amount of time on our hands and objects like our sun did not die out. Well then, given enough time, our sun could also quantum tunnel and relocate. Today, we are going to analyze the impacts this hypothetical scenario would have on our planet and all living things within it!
Alright, so at the moment when our sun disappears via quantum tunneling, no one would have any idea that the sun is not there anymore. This is due to the fact that it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the sun. Furthermore, the Earth would continue to go about its business revolving around the sun as usual for a little over 8 minutes because gravity waves also travel at the speed of light. Although the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s, which is extremely fast, due to the vast distance between our sun and the Earth, at even the light speed it will need 8 minutes and 20 seconds for this phenomenon to fully take effect.
Once we actually see our sun disappear, the earth will also become free of its gravitational influence. This means that as soon as we see the sun disappear, the Earth will also fly out in a straight line tangent to wherever it was in its revolution at around 108 000 km/h when the sun went out. Along with the sunlight, the reflected light from our moon would also fade out indicating to the night side of our planet of the tragedy that had taken place. While we would be fully aware of what had happened to our sun, planets further away from the sun would continue to operate as if nothing had happened and continue to reflect sunlight from the sun that is no longer there. For example, it would take an additional 30 minutes for the light on Jupiter to fade out and free the planet from the gravitational influence of the sun.
There is a property down at the subatomic scale known as quantum tunneling. What it does is allows subatomic particles to disappear and reappear at different locations. Of course, objects at the macro scale do not behave this way simply because there is not enough time in the life span of our universe to even consider the probability of such an event. But let us suppose we had an infinite amount of time on our hands and objects like our sun did not die out. Well then, given enough time, our sun could also quantum tunnel and relocate. Today, we are going to analyze the impacts this hypothetical scenario would have on our planet and all living things within it!
Alright, so at the moment when our sun disappears via quantum tunneling, no one would have any idea that the sun is not there anymore. This is due to the fact that it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the sun. Furthermore, the Earth would continue to go about its business revolving around the sun as usual for a little over 8 minutes because gravity waves also travel at the speed of light. Although the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s, which is extremely fast, due to the vast distance between our sun and the Earth, at even the light speed it will need 8 minutes and 20 seconds for this phenomenon to fully take effect.
Once we actually see our sun disappear, the earth will also become free of its gravitational influence. This means that as soon as we see the sun disappear, the Earth will also fly out in a straight line tangent to wherever it was in its revolution at around 108 000 km/h when the sun went out. Along with the sunlight, the reflected light from our moon would also fade out indicating to the night side of our planet of the tragedy that had taken place. While we would be fully aware of what had happened to our sun, planets further away from the sun would continue to operate as if nothing had happened and continue to reflect sunlight from the sun that is no longer there. For example, it would take an additional 30 minutes for the light on Jupiter to fade out and free the planet from the gravitational influence of the sun.
