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The entire planet Earth is suddenly teleported (never mind how for now) to a completely empty space. No sun, no moon, no stars or other planets. There's absolutely nothing out there and it appears completely dark.

What would happen physically to the Earth ?

I did do some research, but nothing touched upon the suddenness of the event. What I'm really looking for are some of the effects to the planet Earth that would happen rather quickly, days, as opposed to over longer periods of time, say months.

Also I apologize if this question is similar to any other but I couldn't find it.

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marked as duplicate by jdunlop, Cyn, Mołot, Renan, elemtilas Jan 14 at 20:24

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

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    $\begingroup$ There would be no tides (caused by the Sun/Moon). It would be almost instant Winter everywhere. Plants would die because they can't photosynthesise, the poles would freeze to cover the whole ocean. Weather would stop because it is driven by the Sun, there would be no precipitation so rivers would dry up even if they hadn't already frozen. The only place where humans might survive for a while is in volcanic areas like Iceland where they are used to cold conditions, and have heating from underground. $\endgroup$ – chasly from UK Jan 14 at 19:50
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    $\begingroup$ It’s doubtful if there can be such a thing as a completely empty space. Space is only defined and created by the interactions of quantum fields (including the fields that look like particles to us, such as the electron or the quark) — no fields, no space. $\endgroup$ – Mike Scott Jan 14 at 19:52
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    $\begingroup$ Related: The earth is flung into deep space $\endgroup$ – Alexander Jan 14 at 19:52
  • $\begingroup$ Possibly related: What would happen if the earth was thrown into the interstellar medium? $\endgroup$ – Dan Pichelman Jan 14 at 20:09
  • $\begingroup$ Right now it's looking like this question will be closed due to being a duplicate. What I wonder, though, is what do you mean by "suddenly teleported"? Does the planet keep its forward and rotational motions? Or does that suddenly & instantly cease upon being released from the teleport field? I'd vote to put on hold until the question can be edited. $\endgroup$ – elemtilas Jan 14 at 20:24
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That's an interesting question. It depends on whether Mach's Conjecture is true or not. Mach's Conjecture is, basically, that inertia is the consequence of gravitation effects of all the rest of the matter in the cosmos.

If the MC is true, then the effect of the teleportation to an empty cosmos would be to turn off inertia which would have profound and difficult-to-estimate effects on everything. It would almost certainly cause matter to become unstable so that the Earth dissolved into some sort of primordial goo of subatomic particles. Or something else very fast (less than nanoseconds) and very final and not at all helpful. (No one as far as I can has tried to calculate the details as the effort would be both non-trivial and non-useful.

If inertia is not affected, things are a lot easier to estimate.

First, it would get dark.

After that, the next step would be the loss of GPS and other satellite-based services after a couple of hours. Most satellites are solar powered and have batteries only big enough to deal with the 45-minute eclipses they normally see. Sun goes away; satellites switch to battery; batteries run down; satellites go dark.

The tidal bulge in the oceans and solid Earth would no longer be supported and you'd certainly see increased tectonic activity as things settled down, and you'd also see something like a day or so of world-wide, smallish tidal waves as the oceans relaxed to their non-tidal states. This would mainly be in the few-to-many hours range.

Then it would get cold.

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Immediate effects

The earth would cool down within hours to way below freezing temperatures. (the sun would not provide any heat any more)

First days

If the atmosphere is transported with the earth it would take a little longer to cool down still within days. In that same time span most life would cease to exist and maybe a few humans survive by burning fuels or using stored electricity or by getting to bunkers in time. In a couple of weeks surface temperatures would near - 100 to -170°C and slowly near absolute zero.

First years

Wait a little longer and the core of earth would cool down to a pint where tectonic activity would cease to exist. (no active volcanoes no earthquakes no earth crust movements) This would already take years to take effect. So everything beyond this point doesn't belong in this answer if I understood the question right.

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    $\begingroup$ The Earth would not cool to anywhere near absolute zero in a few hours. The Earth is (a) very big and (b) creates its own heat from radioactivity. It would however be very, very cold on the surface. $\endgroup$ – chasly from UK Jan 14 at 20:03
  • $\begingroup$ @chaslyfromUK Yeah moved it in the wrong bracket $\endgroup$ – Soan Jan 14 at 20:04
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    $\begingroup$ The Earth's core will continue to cool at the same rate that it is right now, regardless of outside conditions. It'll be billions of years before the cooling of the core causes tectonics to stagnate. $\endgroup$ – Arkenstein XII Jan 14 at 20:22
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    $\begingroup$ Yes it would cool faster because there would be no gravitational pull on the core like it is in our solar system. Gravitational effects are the reason why it is suspected that some Jupiter moons have fluid water beneath their crust. $\endgroup$ – Soan Jan 14 at 22:40

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