I know gravity moves at the speed of light. I’m just referring to the slight pull of the gravity and the sudden shift to traveling straight off instead of a circle.
All of that will only happen after 8 minutes, see this comment.
Earth has a circular orbit because space-time is curved by the mass of the sun. (Think of a large bowling ball on a trampoline, you can make a small ball travel in circles around it, and if there would be no friction, it would go on indefinitely.) When the sun’s mass suddenly disappears (by pure magic, as this would violate many laws of physics), spacetime would flatten out, at the speed of light.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I know gravity moves at the speed of light. I’m just referring to the slight pull of the gravity and the sudden shift to traveling straight off instead of a circle.
stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
All of that will only happen after 8 minutes, see this comment.
Earth has a circular orbit because space-time is curved by the mass of the sun. (Think of a large bowling ball on a trampoline, you can make a small ball travel in circles around it, and if there would be no friction, it would go on indefinitely.) When the sun’s mass suddenly disappears (by pure magic, as this would violate many laws of physics), spacetime would flatten out, at the speed of light.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
What part of “I know gravity travels at the speed of light” do you not understand, to make you think you’re explaining something to me?
stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
the fact that you don’t understand how the pull of gravity wouldn’t disappear immediately