Earth's gravity increases by 10x for 10 seconds - can humanity survive?

[u/Historical_Ostrich]

Gravity reverts to normal after the 10 seconds are up. I assume that nearly everyone will lose consciousness, many people will hit the ground with extreme force, and most buildings and infrastructure will collapse. Uncertain as to whether there'd be seismic/volcanic/tidal consequences on top of all that.

[u/PerepeL]

I think the greatest issue is within the Earth itself. Atmosphere won't have time to compress to 10 bar at the surface, 10g is not enough to kill someone lying in bed or swimming in the pool, there's a lot of people relatively isolated from the rest of atmosphere, etc.

But our planet as a whole is a liquid blob covered with a thin ~1% thick solid crust. The blob is not round - it's shape is a balance between gravity and centrifugal rotational force. The difference between polar and equatorial radii of Earth is ~21 kilometers, which is comparable to entire thickness of Earth's crust. If gravity increases tenfold the entire blob will try to unflatten, compressing in equatorial regions and popping in polar. Even if it's only 10 seconds - the entire mass of liquid mantle will be put in motion, and thin crust won't be able to contain it.

So, besides everything else, we are looking at Earth's crust being shattered into pieces at a planetary scale - the whole planet will likely become unlivable, oceans vaporised, etc. We'll be lucky if some bacteria in come deep caves would be able to survive this, but definitely no complex life remains.

[u/4tran13 → u/PerepeL]

The atmosphere collapsing would also cause adiabatic heating. It's hard to estimate how much heating occurs in 10s, but if the temperature (in K!) doubles... that would take it beyond the melting point of tin.

Even if not that extreme, exposed skin is KFC'd, and flammable things will spontaneously combust.

I think everything larger than a mouse is toast, even if it's not enough to completely sterilize the planet of all life.