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I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think?

If you could magically turn off gravity, what would happen to a star?

initially, because the atoms are so highly energized/hot, they would rush at high speed outward, via diffusion. afaik, the atoms inside of a star are not bound together (its too hot for the bonds to form), yet gravity holds them together much like a liquid. As the heat and outer layers of the sun rushed away, the cooling core may cool enough to bond and form solid matter (i think carbon would be the most complex possible type).

I don't know if that last part is possible, as it might just be too hot. I'd think it'd be closer to an explosion, even visually, as the atoms rushing away from the star would still be emitting light. A huge flash might be a better description.

lol, my best guess

It would explode because there had to be an inside force stopping it from imploding.

actually, since the core is the hottest, its atoms may explode from inside of the sun, ripping apart the outer layers before they had a chance to diffuse...

Originally posted by inimalist
actually, since the core is the hottest, its atoms may explode from inside of the sun, ripping apart the outer layers before they had a chance to diffuse... What do you mean the atoms explode, do you mean they split within, or from eachother?

I have no idea if the atoms themselves would split

I was suggesting the atoms at the core might be so highly charged compared to those at the surface, that, once gravity was taken away, the atoms at the core would diffuse out so much faster than those on the surface, that it may "explode" from the inside.

internal pressure prevents a star from collapsing inwards under it's own gravity...and the density of the core creates enough gravity to prevent the outer layers of the star from expanding

without the gravity the star would expand until the core was no longer dense enough to allow nuclear fusion and the conversion of hydrogen to helium...no nuclear fusion...no radiative or convective heat...so initally the star would expand outwards rapidly...then stop buring....so effectively it would appear to explode...and fizzle out

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think? I'm not convinced there's a difference between evaporation and explosion in space. They both sound right. If you wanna get overly specific, both definitions are wrong. But nobody cares about such specifics.

Originally posted by Quark_666
I'm not convinced there's a difference between evaporation and explosion in space. They both sound right. If you wanna get overly specific, both definitions are wrong. But nobody cares about such specifics.
Then what would happen?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Then what would happen? I'd call it diffusion.
You can call it explosion, even though that is supposed to have noise.
You can call it evaporation, even though that implies moisture.
I would suggest that your question doesn't have an option B. No matter what you call it, it's the same process. A bunch of hot, centralized matter becomes no longer centralized.

Originally posted by Quark_666
I'd call it diffusion.
You can call it explosion, even though that is supposed to have noise.
You can call it evaporation, even though that implies moisture.
I would suggest that your question doesn't have an option B. No matter what you call it, it's the same process. A bunch of hot, centralized matter becomes no longer centralized.

Would there be supernovae?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think?

If you could magically turn off gravity, what would happen to a star?

It would explode. Massive amounts of energy are produced at the very center, even with their gravity keeping them "stable" there are flares and arc and such.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Would there be supernovae?

No. That requires implosion to initiate. No gravity means no implosion.

it wud be a supernova actually, althoug more spectacular. fusion would stop very soon as the particles move out and pressure at the core decreases, but the energised ions, held together only by gravity would burst outwards away from the centre of density and it would be a spectacular glowing explosion. also, the core particles would literally explode out as they have exponentially more energy than particles towars the surface, the lower explosive speeds of the outside particles would create a sort of enclosed casinfg for the inner more energetic particles and some pressure would build but the star would sintantly explode, from inside out, and the frictin between the low velocity and high velocity inner particles itself would emit a lot of em ways, probably a lot of x rays. im no expert, but this is what i think.

It would expand then cool, so in terms of from Earth we'd probably be talking about a Flash then it vanishes when it gets too dark to see.

erm in terms of from earth, lol, wed all be dead. the ensuing explosion wud easily destroy much of the solar system. atleast a supernova has borned out its share of fusion fuel and got less mass left.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
erm in terms of from earth, lol, wed all be dead. the ensuing explosion wud easily destroy much of the solar system. atleast a supernova has borned out its share of fusion fuel and got less mass left.

Speaking strictly as a mortal, I feel that both would leave me equally dead.

I don't know about that. If the gravity of the sun is canceled then the Earth will break free from orbit and fly in a straight line so actually we might be breaking even here.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't know about that. If the gravity of the sun is canceled then the Earth will break free from orbit and fly in a straight line so actually we might be breaking even here.

Then we freeze to death . . .

Before that though we would see a flash and then nothing, like I earlier predicted. And the hot plasma will be flying towards us at similar speeds that we fly away so the residual heat should keep us going for a bit.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think?

If you could magically turn off gravity, what would happen to a star?

Isn't gravity created because a star is so large? I've never actually taken a physics class, this is just what I remember from learning about space in elementary school.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Before that though we would see a flash and then nothing, like I earlier predicted. And the hot plasma will be flying towards us at similar speeds that we fly away so the residual heat should keep us going for a bit.
Since the earth would stop rotating, no. If the residual kept up with with the planet, one side would be ice and the other scorched.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think?

If you could magically turn off gravity, what would happen to a star? It would evaporate explosively.

/science forum

Originally posted by Naz
Isn't gravity created because a star is so large? I've never actually taken a physics class, this is just what I remember from learning about space in elementary school.

because of its mass, ya

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
/science forum

There's a science forum? Were?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
There's a science forum? Were?

Originally posted by RocasAtoll
Since the earth would stop rotating, no. If the residual kept up with with the planet, one side would be ice and the other scorched.
The Earth would continue to rotate on it's access due to inertia, but if the plasma remained at the same distance of one AU then the Earth could maintain a static temperature until the plasma cooled.

While our planet's core isn't subject to the same magnitude of gravitational forces as on stars, it's still under pressure due to gravity. Wouldn't earth, as well as the other planets, "expand" as well? Just not as rapidly as a star?

I was under the impression that only the suns personal gravity was cancelled, not gravity in general. The Earth probably wouldn't take to much damage, most of the stuff on Earth has a pretty good mechanical grip on everything else.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I was under the impression that only the suns personal gravity was cancelled, not gravity in general. The Earth probably wouldn't take to much damage, most of the stuff on Earth has a pretty good mechanical grip on everything else.

Yeah just looked at the first post, stars only

I also never said it would the sun, just a star.

Thats like saying, when asked where you live "a house".

Theres quite a lot of stars, each different than the other.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I was having a discussion with a friend. I said if you could turn off the gravity that held a star together, the star would explode. He said it would just evaporate. What do you think?

If you could magically turn off gravity, what would happen to a star? It would drift away?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I also never said it would the sun, just a star.

A man shot a deer and when the Buddah walked past he asked him "What happens to a deer's soul when it dies?". The Buddah removed the arrow silently, saving the deer's life.

We were all addressing the more important issue.

burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn

and sym, please do away with the ambiguities in adult convo!

Originally posted by inimalist
burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn

and sym, please do away with the ambiguities in adult convo!

I'll try.

Well I said to drift away because we need a Sun to keep us in gravity otherwise we would pull away, drift. All planets depend on the others especially the sun for keeping in the pull of gravity and keeping our circular, or whatever in the circular motion. If you are saying that a planet all together loses its gravity, then I believe it would become dead in our orbital system. It would be dead unto it's self.

To say that it would implode and such, I don't think so, because it would be dead like a rock. If our own world would cease, our gravity not being there would make all things would die. Our hot inner core would cease and that wouldn't make anything like a Nova, Super Nova or such. I believe we would become like an asteroid type thing that floats around the universe.........

What would cause the core to cool without expansion in the loss of gravity?

Originally posted by King Kandy
What would cause the core to cool without expansion in the loss of gravity? Actually I don't know....Possibility of non cooling being tugged on by the other orbital bodies that would contribute.

I do know that when things cool, they expand, but what about the contributing factors of the other solar bodies.

Those solar bodies are insignificant in comparison.

Really? Hmm..So a planet kicks cold, the heat turns off, which means no gravity,..........so the planet is cold.....It sleeps. It may suck in a bit, contract, but that does not mean it would explode now, would it? If it did do such a thing,then it would turn into fragments that would be like an asteroid.

Why do you think a loss of gravity would make the planet cold? I'm just not getting this one at all...

since when was this ever a discussion about our sun and the earth?

We've moved on to a more relevant issue here.

Originally posted by King Kandy
We've moved on to a more relevant issue here.

Why?

Originally posted by King Kandy
We've moved on to a more relevant issue here.

translates as "we've gone off-topic"

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Why?
Because the original question was pretty much answered.