• Question: Do you think that the Earth might have a possibility of staying alive without the Sun?

    Asked by rolina23 to Ed, Hayley, Jason, Nathan, Sophie on 13 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Hayley Evers-King

      Hayley Evers-King answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      I don’t think so. If you took away the sun immediately we (and most animals) would lose our major food source as plants wouldn’t be able to photosynthesise. We’d also lose our main source of heat and without the suns gravity we might be much more likely to collide with others planetary bodies (planets, meteors etc)!

      There is life on Earth that exists without the influence of the sun – there are whole ecosystems that thrive through “chemosynthesis” (from chemicals not light) around hydrothermal vents on the seafloor where it is completely dark. However these systems evolved under the current situation we have with the sun, so it’s difficult to know how much the sun has influenced the way they formed.

    • Photo: Edward Bovill

      Edward Bovill answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      If the sun suddenly stopped shining then the Earth would relatively quickly become a big ball of ice without the heat of the Sun to keep it warm – in which no life on Earth would be able to survive.

      We’d have to move underground and live in bunkers with life support systems. As there would be no sunlight to allow plants to photosynthesise then all plant and eventually animal life on the surface would die out. Humans would only be able to survive for as long as we could find fuel to keep our life support systems going.

      Don’t worry though – this cannot physically happen over a short period of time. The Sun will eventually stop shining, but not for another 4 billion years or so!

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