Editing Openai/6921ae73-3700-8000-8ab7-90012976bb8a (section)

=== Assistant: If gravity suddenly stopped working everywhere, the universe would go from “kinda stable” to “total chaos” very fast. ===
If gravity suddenly stopped working everywhere, the universe would go from “kinda stable” to “total chaos” very fast.

Let’s pretend this means: all gravitational attraction becomes zero instantly.

==== Surprisingly: you wouldn’t explode or fall apart. ====
* Your body is held together by electromagnetic forces (bonds between atoms, molecules, etc.), not gravity.
* So: your shape, organs, bones, etc. stay intact.

But:
* You’re no longer pulled down to Earth.
* You, the chair, the air, the oceans — everything — would start moving in straight lines with whatever speed they already had.

So you’d feel:
* Instant weightlessness, like being in space.
* Stuff would start floating, including you.

==== Earth is currently held in orbit around the Sun by gravity. ====

If gravity turns off:
* At the exact instant it stops, Earth keeps moving with its current sideways speed.
* But with no gravity pulling it inward, it no longer curves around the Sun.
* It just goes straight off into space in a tangent line.

Same with:
* The Moon → flies off in a straight line.
* Satellites → no more orbits, they just coast.

Also:
* Tides vanish (no Moon/Sun pull).
* Atmosphere & oceans: - They’re held to Earth by gravity. - With no gravity, air and water also just drift away into space over time.

Earth basically becomes a rock whose stuff is slowly leaking off into space.

==== The whole Solar System falls apart: ====
* Planets fly off in straight lines.
* Asteroids, comets, moons → all gone from orbit.
* The Sun is no longer holding anything.

The Sun itself:
* Is held together by its own gravity, balancing the pressure from hot gas and fusion.
* No gravity → nothing to hold the hot plasma in.
* The Sun would violently explode/expand as its gas rushes outward.

Same happens to other stars, gas giants, etc. Stars can’t exist without gravity.

==== Galaxies are giant systems of stars held together by gravity. ====

No gravity:
* Stars in a galaxy stop orbiting the center.
* They shoot off in straight lines into intergalactic space.
* Black holes? Their entire existence is tied to gravity. If gravity is truly gone, the whole concept of a black hole breaks — all that trapped matter would no longer be “trapped.”

So on large scales:
* Galaxies dissolve.
* Galaxy clusters fly apart.
* The big cosmic web structure of the universe disintegrates.

==== Right now, the universe’s large-scale behavior is a mix of: ====
* Gravity pulling matter together.
* Dark energy pushing space to expand faster.

If gravity vanishes and dark energy is still there:
* Only expansion wins.
* Space just expands faster and faster, and all matter that was clumped by gravity spreads out.

End result:
* A universe full of: - Thinly spread particles - No stable stars, planets, or galaxies - Just stuff coasting through ever-expanding space

===== If gravity stopped working: =====
* You’d instantly become weightless, but your body stays intact.
* Planets leave their orbits, stars explode, galaxies fall apart.
* Atmospheres & oceans drift off into space.
* On cosmic scales, structure collapses and the universe becomes a thin, drifting soup of matter.

If you want to go even deeper, we can talk about what this means in Einstein’s relativity (spacetime curvature just…flattening out).