Fear not, as I said at the beginning… this cannot happen, it is just an imagining of what would happen if it did. So while the notion of floating around in zero gravity might, at first, seems appealing, when we look at the idea a little more closely we realise it is not a very nice concept at all. Then rocks and clumps of earth would break off and float up too.Įventually, the whole Earth would break apart and float away into space, but we would be long gone by then. The Earth would start to feel an incredible pressure which would ultimately mean that the buildings attached to its surface would start to break up and float away. But you would start to feel those temperatures rise pretty quickly. So initially we said that if you were inside a building you would find yourself up at the ceiling If you had an oxygen tank then you might be OK for a while. A first, water would probably start floating off in large blobs, but as the atmosphere of the Earth disappears then the heat of the sun would penetrate to the Earth’s surface even more than it does now and water would probably start to boil off, into steam that would float off into space. Liquids would leave the Earth’s surface too, so all the water on our planet, in lakes, rivers and seas would start to float off. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE LAKES, RIVERS AND SEA? Not only would solid objects float off into space but our air, our atmosphere would too which means that unless you had an oxygen tank to hand you’d have no air to breathe. Anything inside a building would get stopped by the ceiling, anything outside would float off into space, pretty quickly. In fact, rather than feeling like you are floating away from the Earth, you would probably feel like the Earth is dropping away from you!Īnything not stuck down in some way would move in the same direction you would. The Earth would keep spinning, as it does, but you would no longer move with it, you would move in a straight line, upwards. When I opened up the question on my Facebook page I got more input from Cathal (5) and Ciarán (7) (from the Bumbles of Rice blog) they reckon that if you were indoors you would float upwards, or feel like you were being pulled up… and bump your head! A very good point boys In fact, the bump on the head would be the least of your worries!īefore I go any further though, it is important to say that this cannot actually happen, we can’t just turn off gravity, so when we discuss what would happen if we did, we are talking more science fiction than science it is good to keep that in mind!Īs Cathal and Ciarán said, you would no longer have a force keeping you on the ground. This was a recent question from my 10-year-old son… it certainly got some interesting discussions going around the kitchen table. What would happen if the Earth’s gravity suddenly disappeared?
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