What if the Sun turned into a black hole?
What would happen to the Earth if the Sun’s mass suddenly collapsed to within its Schwarzschild radius and became a black hole? I know the Sun is not large enough to actually collapse to a blackhole, but it would be interesting to know what would happen to a planet orbiting a star that did become one. Would it spiral inward to be engulfed by the black hole or just move into a much smaller orbit? I’m very interested in the answer, especially after reading your articles on how hard it would be to actually reach the Sun from the Earth. Reply I have no special expertise in those areas, but I believe the gravitational attraction would remain the same, and therefore, so would the Earth’s orbit. Of course, life would quickly end. After being burned crisp by the energy released from the collapse, Earth would get very, very cold. Stars near a black hole do not spiral inwards. A huge black hole exists near the center of our galaxy, and quite a few stars orbit it (in Keplerian ellipses), and appa
