The Earth would be flung out of the Solar System, as we suddenly exceed the Solar Escape velocity (42km/s42km/s) by several orders of magnitude.
Within 3 minutes we will be outside the orbit of MarsWithin an hour we will have passed JupiterWithin 5 hours, the Earth will be outside the orbit of PlutoWithin 16 hours, we will have overtaken Voyager 2Within 19 hours we will have overtaken Voyager 1[1]Depending on your definition, we will leave the solar system some time between 17 hours and two days
At this point there’s a whopping great gap, as the planet cruises through interstellar space.
Depending on what direction you head in, you may reach the following milestones (you won’t reach all of them, because they’re in opposite directions!)
By the time Donald Trump’s first (only?) term ends (2021), we will have reached our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri in the αα-Centauri systemBy the time that the first Mickey Mouse film falls into the public domain (2023), we will reach Barnard's Starbut you can’t have any shore leave, because Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz had an unhappy love affairBy the time the world population reaches 8 billion (2025), we will reach the site of the famous battle [2]with the Borg, Wolf 3596 months after that, you could reach Sirius, the brightest star in our sky
Providing no collisions have occurred, Earth is still travelling at ultra-relativistic velocities, having barely slowed down in the past 8 years.
We can continue on our merry way — we’ll keep passing stars, on our voyage of exploration. We also hugely exceed the escape velocity of our galaxy — so we’re going to keep on going! Of course, what happens now does hugely depend on what direction we’re going in.
We can assume we must be travelling in the galactic plane (i.e. we cannot exit vertically) because otherwise the maths gets a bit icky and we have to start working out the height of the galaxy at a given radius…
Radially InwardIn 26,000 years, we will be within spitting distance of the Supermassive Black Hole at the centre of the Milky Way(unless we actually hit it, nothing weird really happens, it is just a really bright radio source)Another 50,000 years after that, the Earth exits out the other side of the Milky Way, having traversed the Delta Quadrant (I did warn you about those Borg!)Radially OutwardIn 24,000 years, we exit the Milky Way at the closest point, and enter into the intergalactic voidTangentialSomewhere around 50,000 light years (depending on the angle) we’d exit the galaxy “out of the side”
After this, it will be another 2.54 million years before another milestone — the Andromeda Galaxy.
But we just pass right on through — we still exceed the escape velocity, as long as we don’t knock into anything.
In fact, providing we don’t crash into any stars, there’s literally nothing to stop us. The Earth will just continue its nomadic existence until the Heat Death of the Universe.
Except, this is all irrelevant anyway.
The humans all died about three weeks in.
What did you expect?
You took the sun away from them!
Within a single day, Earth has (maybe) exited the solar system, and traversed 173AU — which means the power it gets from the sun has decreased by a factor of 1173211732
Whilst the atmosphere will retain a small amount of heat, this will dissipate quickly, and all water on Earth will freeze within a matter of days (if not hours).
Humanity cannot possibly survive more than a few weeks in these conditions (especially with no warning!)
This is why I totally ignored relativistic effects, the time referred to here is with respect to the Galactic standard of rest — because the relativistic effects I only occur in Earth's frame — and there's no-one alive on Earth to care about it!
So, it is my duty to announce to you, that Everyone Dies™.
Despite this, the Earth continues on its serene voyage across the heavens, soaring at unimaginable speeds through the vastness of our universe. A planet-sized hearse plunging through space.
But doing so in silence.
Footnotes
No comments:
Post a Comment