• @[email protected]
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    6 hours ago

    But will we feel the shift in gravity/inertia as the planet starts moving straight?

    • @LovableSidekick
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      3 hours ago

      I really doubt we would notice, because if so we would already be feeling different during day and night. The sun pulls us toward the sky during the daytime and toward the ground at night. Also toward the east at sunrise and the west at sunset. But none of this seems noticeable.

      • @[email protected]
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        140 minutes ago

        We are in “free fall” around the Sun so that’s why we don’t feel its pull of gravity.

        You would similarly feel weightless if you were in an orbit around Earth.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 hours ago

        I know gravity moves at the speed of light. I’m just referring to the slight pull of the gravity and the sudden shift to traveling straight off instead of a circle.

    • @[email protected]
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      96 hours ago

      This is the cutting-edge of my understanding so if I’m wrong somebody call me out, but I think because gravity is warping space-time and not actually pulling anything, we wouldn’t feel an inertia change. Our inertia would be maintained, but the space-time we’re going through would suddenly be shaped different, so we’d follow a new path

      • @mipadaitu
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        23 hours ago

        The part you’re missing is that earth isn’t a point in space. That’s why there’s tides caused by the sun (which are different than tides caused by the moon)

        A person wouldn’t feel the difference, but the tides would slosh back when the solar gravity stops effecting them.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 hours ago

        So would all the other planets, so there’d be a non-zero chance we’d smack into one of them. Most likely though we’d become a very, very cold rogue planet.