[Lorric]

Hey everyone. This is just a curiosity of mine that I wonder if anyone knows the answer to and would care to share or speculate. I'm not talking about the sun going nova, I'm talking about if it was there one moment and just.... gone the next.

How long would we have to live before the planet cooled to the point where we died out?

And is there any possible way somehow, some way, somewhere humanity could scrape out an existence even without the sun?

I've had a few dreams over the years about this (and the sun going nova) and seeing this of all things brought the memories of those dreams flooding back:

[Phantom Hoover]

http://reddit.com/r/askscience

[Phantom Hoover]

(don't actually ask them, use the search function to find one of the previous ten million times this question has been asked)

[Ghostavo]

Nightmare moon would have won.

[Lorric]

http://reddit.com/r/askscience

Thank you very much. That's getting bookmarked.

(don't actually ask them, use the search function to find one of the previous ten million times this question has been asked)

Yes, I did so, and just watched this. Very interesting. We would have a lot more time than I thought we would. Lots of links in the description of the video too.

I'm very surprised how many people are interested in the same thing I was. :)

[headdie]

that is very interesting.... and gives me a few campaign ideas...... hmmmmm

[Scourge of Ages]

Boom: xkcd answered this a while ago

http://what-if.xkcd.com/49/

[Veers]

While I generally work nights, I imagine I would be a lot colder than usual.

[Mito [PL]]

We would have to ignite Jupiter/Saturn/Neptune, all of them best.

Or we would have to dig into Earth and use geothermal energy to survive.

OR we would leave Earth and go to Eden Prime/Pandora/Capella/Vega/Twelve Colonies (Caprica ect.)/other.

I didn't watch those videos...

[X3N0-Life-Form]

You missed Alpha Centauri's Planet !

[haloboy100]

Let's ask the Capellans. They seem to be doing just fine.

[InsaneBaron]

Good question. Given that we can build craft capable of operating in a vacuum, I think that given enough advanced warning we could build shelters that would allow us to survive, at least for the time being. Most life other life on Earth would die out pretty quick.

[watsisname]

For given values of 'us' and 'time being'.  Feeding billions of people with a collapsed food chain is… challenging.

As for other life on Earth, it'd die out rapidly, indeed.  Pretty much the only long-term survivors would be sea floor vent communities and lithoautotrophs.  The latter might even last longer than if the Sun had continued its regular evolution.