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[Physics] Does gravity have 'elasticity'? If a solid sun-sized object zooms across space at the speed of light, then abruptly stops, does it take gravity some time to 'settle' around it? (self.askscience)

submitted 6 months ago by 58008 to c/askscience

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Is it a stable/static effect no matter what, or is it a bit more stretchy/bouncy depending on how the object is behaving?

Thank you!

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[–] partial_accumen 2 points 6 months ago

That’s amazing, thank you! A ghostly remnant of gravity still exerting 8-ish minutes of influence on earth (in the event of the sun’s instantaneous disappearance) is something I never heard or thought about before, but it makes sense.

Also for us standing on the sun facing side of Earth when the magic wand was waved would still see the sun shining in the sky for 8 minutes because that light had already left the sun before it blinked out of existence. We on Earth would experience the loss of the Sun's gravitational influence on the planet and the light of the sun at the same moment as both light and gravity travel at the speed of light.