What would happen if the sun suddenly just disappeared?

First a disclaimer: The sun simply poofing out of existence is impossible as it violates the principle of mass conservation, a very fundamental law of physics. But for the sake of a hypothetical, what would happen to us, here on Earth, if the sun suddenly did not exist?

Okay so the first thing that would happen is that the instant the sun disappeared, the Earth would fly off into space at a velocity of about 67,000 miles in a straight line tangent to the ellipse of its orbit. We wouldn’t feel a thing. In fact, because the sun is like ~100mil miles away from the Earth, it actually takes the light from the sun about 8min to reach us. We wouldn’t even know the sun disappeared until 8 minutes after it happened.

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“ time for bed” whispers the sun to the moon. “oh but I’m not tired yet, come watch with me for a while. Just a little while. I want you to see people at their best.” The sun looked down at the earth, and saw a woman screaming at her mirror, and a man ripping at his hair, quietly crying at the stars out his window. The sun did not understand. He saw no light here. “but they are dying” he says As a man and woman claw at each other in their car, and a baby screams from its crib while the mother pours herself another glass of wine. “look again” says the moon “you must always look again.” and now the woman screaming in the mirror was caressing a man’s shoulders as they danced quietly. The man pulling at his hair had it brushed back, and was singing softly to his little girl while she slept in his arms. The couple in their car were inside, muttering apologies in between kisses and sheets. The baby was sleeping in her mother’s lap, and the wine was poured down the drain. “one thing I’ve learned from the nighttime” says the moon, “is that people are at their best directly after they are at their worst. They still, through all the sadness that I bring, know how to save each other.” With that, the moon went back to sleep as the sun took its place in the sky, watching the small miracles that took place just before the dawn”

conversations between spheres
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