--- title: "What would happen if gravity disappeared?" description: "The Earth itself would come apart — gravity is the only thing holding a planet together. The mechanism, what follows in what order, and how confident the answer actu" url: https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/gravity-disappeared/ site: "At One Place" --- # What would happen if gravity disappeared? **What would happen if gravity disappeared?: The Earth itself would come apart — gravity is the only thing holding a planet together.** Speculative Gravity is not an optional extra layered onto matter; it is what assembles and holds every structure larger than a mountain. Without it, the atmosphere would disperse into space immediately, having nothing to hold it down, and the oceans would follow. The planet itself is held in a sphere by its own gravitational binding, so it would break apart under its own residual rotation and internal pressure, and the Sun — which is a ball of gas held together against its own thermal pressure by gravity alone — would cease to exist as a star. Everything on the surface would depart tangentially at the local rotation speed, up to 465 metres per second at the equator. The question is marked speculative rather than extrapolated for a specific reason: gravity in general relativity is the geometry of spacetime, so "removing" it is not a change to the universe so much as a description of a different universe, and the physics we would reason with does not survive the premise. ## How confident this is This is speculation. The scenario is far enough outside anything observed that the answer depends heavily on which assumptions you start from — treat it as a thought experiment, not a prediction. ## Physics - [What would happen if an asteroid hit the Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/asteroid-hit/) — It depends enormously on size — most burn up, a 20-metre one broke windows across a city, and a 10-kilometre one ended the dinosaurs. - [What would happen if the Sun became a black hole?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/sun-became-a-black-hole/) — Earth's orbit would not change at all — the mass would be the same. It would simply go dark and cold. - [What would happen if you fell into a black hole?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/fall-into-a-black-hole/) — Into a small one, tidal forces would stretch you apart before you arrived; into a supermassive one, you would cross the horizon without noticing. - [What would happen if you fell into a hole through the Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/hole-through-the-earth/) — You would oscillate from one side to the other and back, with a one-way trip of about 38 minutes. - [What would happen if you travelled at the speed of light?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/travelled-at-light-speed/) — You cannot — accelerating any mass to light speed requires infinite energy. Approaching it, time dilates dramatically. - [What would happen if gravity doubled?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/gravity-doubled/) — You would weigh twice as much, most tall structures would need rebuilding, and no bird larger than a sparrow could fly. - [What would happen if you were shrunk to the size of an ant?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/shrunk-to-ant-size/) — The square-cube law would break you: you would freeze, suffocate, and be unable to drink from a surface of water. - [What would happen if the speed of light were slower?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/speed-of-light-slower/) — Chemistry, nuclear fusion and the mass-energy relationship would all change — stars would not work as they do. - [What would happen if a gamma-ray burst hit the Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/gamma-ray-burst/) — A nearby one aimed at us would strip a large fraction of the ozone layer within seconds, with the damage arriving as ultraviolet over the following years. ## Common questions ### What would happen if gravity disappeared? The Earth itself would come apart — gravity is the only thing holding a planet together. ### How certain is that? Speculative. This is speculation. The scenario is far enough outside anything observed that the answer depends heavily on which assumptions you start from — treat it as a thought experiment, not a prediction. ## Related pages - [What would happen if an asteroid hit the Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/asteroid-hit/) - [What would happen if the Sun became a black hole?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/sun-became-a-black-hole/) - [What would happen if you fell into a black hole?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/fall-into-a-black-hole/) - [What would happen if you fell into a hole through the Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/hole-through-the-earth/) - [What would happen if you travelled at the speed of light?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/travelled-at-light-speed/) - [What would happen if gravity doubled?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/gravity-doubled/) - [What would happen if you were shrunk to the size of an ant?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/shrunk-to-ant-size/) - [What would happen if the speed of light were slower?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/speed-of-light-slower/) - [What happens if you stop eating sugar?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/stop-eating-sugar/) - [What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/earth-stopped-spinning/) - [What happens if you stop drinking alcohol?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/stop-drinking-alcohol/) - [What happens if you stop smoking?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/stop-smoking/) - [What would happen if the Sun went out?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/sun-went-out/) - [What happens if you stop eating meat?](https://atoneplace.net/what-happens-if/stop-eating-meat/) ## Sources - NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (https://www.nasa.gov/) [Public domain (US Government)]