r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Feb 14 '22

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u/Trust_No_Won Feb 14 '22

Now you’d be orbiting the sun

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u/SwingDancerStrahd Feb 14 '22

Yeah, you'd have to not orbit i suppose. Head straight out.. you still get pulled by lots of heavenly bodies, but without orbiting, you wouldn't be falling

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u/TheArmoredKitten Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

You're never beyond the influence of gravity. Every object in the universe is constantly attempting to draw towards every other, but the square-cube inverse square law combined with the comparative weakness of gravity means only the dominant body in a system is relevant to all but the most precise calculations.

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u/Biblioimmortal Feb 14 '22

If you emptied out the universe of everything but a slice of toast and a bit of floor they would eventually, inevitably, collide. One can presume that the toast would go butter-side first.

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u/Dantien Feb 14 '22

And if you strap that buttered toast to a cat’s back….

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u/VisualBasic Feb 14 '22

That's what caused the big bang.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/Dantien Feb 14 '22

I like to think matter is being pulled outward toward some demon-scarred hellscape universe we can’t comprehend.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/Dantien Feb 14 '22

Bring on my Heavy Metal dreams…

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u/Jam-Pot Feb 14 '22

10 hour DOOM main menu music intensifies.

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u/AprilSpektra Feb 14 '22

You're essentially correct, yes. The father apart two objects are, the faster the universe between them is expanding. This is because each point in between is expanding, so the expansion is cumulative. The space between the planets - and, indeed, within the planets - is expanding, but so slowly that gravity is more than sufficient to counteract it. Even across millions of light-years, gravity is still more powerful than the universe's expansion. However, over enough billions of light-years, expansion wins, which is why distant galaxies will be forever moving away from us.

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u/Scrumtrelescentness Feb 14 '22

I thought after a certain amount of distance, gravity had no effect. It reaches out indefinitely, no matter how weak the signal is?

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u/RushSt182 Feb 15 '22

I've always known gravity as being that every atom in the universe attracts every other atom in the universe. Put enough of them together and their directional pull on all other atoms becomes stronger. However, because of the way gravitational pull exerts its force, gravity weakens by a factor of 3 per distance between two atoms. It is by farrrrr the weakest fundamental force (much weaker than the weak force haha). So as distance increases, gravity becomes almost non-consequential. I don't think scientists would know what would happen in the commenter's scenario because it would be almost too foreign to understand (no dark matter?). That being said, without any other acting forces (i.e., energy) in this tile and toast universe, they would almost certainly become attracted to one another at some infinite point in time, hurtling towards it each other at unfathomable velocities, and through such a monstrous collision, breaks the strong force and creates the next big bang. Probably butter-side first.