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 Originally Posted by Eric
Are there any cliff notes on gravity waves? What would happen if our sun were to evaporate?
Cliff notes on gravity waves.
Einstein's General Relativity says that matter tells space-time how to curve and curves in space-time tell matter how to accelerate.
There are more pithy statements, but I like this one for right now.
If you are prepared to accept this point, the gravity waves are already in there.
Space-time is curved by a certain mass at a certain location. The curvature accelerates that mass, meaning that it is no longer in the same location, and the source of the curvature has moved, so the curvature must have changed. The propagation of this change in the curvature is a gravity wave.
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The sun evaporating is tricky to answer, because where and how that mass-energy is dissipated makes a difference.
If the sun completely evaporated into gravitational waves (by some unknown mechanism), then it's a different story to if the sun "burns out" or expands to the point of evaporative cooling.
This one is probably the most like the "What if the sun were suddenly and inexplicably gone?" question.
Everything in our solar system would stop orbiting the sun (which isn't there to orbit anymore). It would instead start orbiting the next largest gravitational center, which would be the center of the Milky Way. It would all get very cold and very dark all of a sudden. There is little likelihood that anything that is not already a bound planet-moon system would become so bound. That is, Jupiter, for instance, would be orbiting the galactic center, with all of it's moons, but not it's Jovian Asteroids (which are bound to the lagrange points associated with the Jupiter-Sun system).
I'll have to learn about the intensity of gravitational waves when you're up close to them. I expect to see an increase in seismic activity resulting from treating planets like a stress ball. I'm sure it would if the effect is large, but it could be quite small, even up close. I have no idea.
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