What If Earth got Kicked Out of the Solar System? Rogue Earth
Why Worldbuilding Stack Exchange recommends it
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange users link it as a ready reference for rogue-planet, eternal-night and ejected-Earth scenarios when building stories and answering survival or timeline questions.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2020 to 2023.
What it is
A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on what would happen if a passing star ejected Earth from the Solar System, turning it into a rogue planet. It walks through the freezing surface, the loss of sunlight, and how long life might hang on, with sources linked in the description.
What people said
Recommends Globin347 · 2022-05 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How do we survive in post-apocalyptical permanent nighttime (with no electricity, communication, running water, and aliens of course)?”
It's Impossible. All life ultimately depends on an energy input into the ecosystem; for us, that's the sun. Plants convert sunlight into energy that the rest of the ecosystem can use. Without the sun, there are no plants, and no animals can survive. While there are organisms that live off other sources of energy, like geothermal vents or volcanic Archaea, These critters are not accessible to your survivors, and do not produce food that the remaining humans can eat. On top of that, without the sun, the world would freeze over into temperatures no animal could survive very rapidly. If a human group has fuel, they might be able to warm a shelter for a while, but there would be no means of getti
Recommends Laura · 2023-01 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How long would humanity survive if a sudden eternal night occurs?”
Very similar premise, brilliantly explained- on the Kurzgesagt youtube channel ('What If Earth got Kicked Out of the Solar System?') [this video]
Recommends The Square-Cube Law · 2023-09 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How can we meet aliens in an underpopulated galaxy?”
Unwilling visitors Aliens do not have the technology for interstellar travel, but nature is an unforgiving female dog. The poor bastards were evicted from their stellar system when another star came close to theirs and pulled them out. They had to spend all their resources - and I mean all - just to survive underground in a rogue planet. Now, as you say, they have: Reliable interplanetary travel No reliable interstellar travel When their planet eventually comes into our solar system, they might think: "oh there's a couple planets here where we could thrive" (Earth and Mars). It takes astronomically less energy to move from a escaping planet to Mars or Earth than it takes to make the Sun capt
Cites user11937382 · 2020-12 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “How could we recover from being ejected from the solar system?”
I just finished watching the newest kurzgesagt video on if the earth got kicked out of the solar system here: [this video] And I wanted to use that scenario in a story but I instead want the earth to be pulled far enough away to be come perpetually snow cold without being uninhabitable and in 1,000,000 years or so slowly fall back into it’s old orbit. How could I make that happen without messing up the other planets permanently. They can be dislodged too but I need them to fall back into their original place too.
Cites Anna Wood · 2020-12 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “A supermassive black hole is coming our way. When's the latest that we would notice?”
A supermassive black hole would almost certainly be noticed at least a few thousand years in advance. However, these aren't your only option. It is reported that several smaller, stellar-mass black holes orbit Sagittarius A* at the center of our galaxy, so I think it's safe to assume that there are similar conditions in other galaxies. In a galaxy merger, these stellar-mass black holes could also be ejected. If one of these were coming at us, we would still likely detect it earlier, but it isn't unthinkable that we would have only a few months of warning as we notice orbital irregularities in Oort cloud, or maybe it's too difficult to monitor the Oort cloud(I honestly don't know) and you wou
Cites The Square-Cube Law · 2020-12 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “TImeline of Rogue Earth”
I have seen a video from Kurzgesagt [this video] that goes into some details about what would happen should the Earth be flung outside the solar system. It says that by the time Earth's altitude relative to the sun would be as high as the average orbit of some planets, the surface temperatures would be around some ranges. Then I found this question: The earth is flung into deep space [LINK] For which jdunlop [LINK] has this answer: There's actually a popsci article about exactly this [LINK] . Pertinent: Within a week, the average global surface temperature would drop below 0°F. In a year, it would dip to –100°. The top layers of the oceans would freeze over, but in an apocalyptic irony, that ice