What Would Happen If the Sun Was Flat? | Unveiled

What Would Happen If The Sun Was Flat?

Recent decades have seen a resurgence in the flat earth conspiracy, with the idea proliferating on internet forums, social media, and YouTube. This is surprising, because we’ve actually known that the Earth is a sphere for . . . thousands of years! Ancient Greek philosophers knew it was round, and contrary to popular belief, that knowledge was NOT lost in the Middle Ages. But what if it wasn’t the Earth that was flat, but our own Sun?

This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: What Would Happen If The Sun Was Flat?

Of course, our actual Sun is definitely spherical. Its geometry plays an important role in how it functions and the orbits of the planets around it. The Sun’s mass and electromagnetic radiation are necessary for life on Earth. Without its heat, planets would freeze over and mirror the sub-zero temperatures of Neptune and Uranus. The Sun is also the reason that the planets remain in orbit - its presence and gravitational pull acts as a lynchpin for the stability of our solar system. If we didn’t have a Sun, all the planets, asteroids, and comets in the solar system would fly off into the coldness of interstellar space.

But could our Sun exist as a flat disc? Though it may sound absurd, the Sun actually started out as flat. It formed from a mass of interstellar gas and dust that collapsed under its own gravity. The cloud flattened into a disc and our Sun was created in the middle.

If the Sun were flat, we’d immediately run into problems. Our Sun is a nuclear reactor that’s constantly fusing hydrogen into helium. When stars run out of hydrogen to burn, their core contracts, and their outer shell expands; by this point, the sun becomes a red giant. What happens next is different depending on the type of star. But main sequence stars like our own collapse into white dwarfs and eventually cool into black dwarfs.

A flat Sun might not have enough fuel to keep burning. Suppose the outside were somehow sliced away, leaving a flat plane; it might have insufficient hydrogen to fuse into helium. If the shell expanded, it could fry us all. Then again, it might have inadequate mass to hold together, and simply fall apart. And without a Sun, Earth would go dark, descend into an ice age, and all life would die.

If it DID retain significant mass, however, it would just return to a spherical shape. There’s a reason that large enough objects in space are round - from planets, moons, and stars, to some comets and asteroids. An object’s gravity pulls equally at its edges in every direction. That means that all “sides” are pulled down towards the centre. Though Earth might seem to be anything but perfectly round, with tall mountains and deep trenches, if it were shrunk down to fit in your hand, it would actually be relatively smooth.

However, let’s suppose that somehow, the Sun became flat, and maintained that shape. The results would be devastating. Since it’s a sphere, the Sun releases heat and energy in every direction simultaneously. If it were flat, it would mostly give off heat in two directions - whichever directions the flat planes were facing. Currently, the Sun takes about one month to rotate (spinning faster at the equator than at the poles), turning in the same direction that the planets orbit.

What this means is that if the Sun were flat, and continued to orbit at its current rate, with the flat planes facing the planets, we could go weeks without experiencing a “full” Sun. Supposing it stopped rotating, well that would be even worse. It would mean that we’d only get a “full” Sun twice a year. And if the planes faced “north” or “south” instead, all we’d ever get is the edge - just a slim vertical line of light in our dark sky.

We could use electricity to provide some light, but that wouldn’t stop the planet’s temperature from dropping drastically. It would bring about an ice age that only began to melt during a “full” Sun, if the flat surfaces did indeed face the orbital plane. Our planet would be stuck in a constant cycle of freezing and melting. Other planets would experience the same fates. Venus would cool down drastically. Every planet in our solar system would receive much less light as they once did, severely altering our solar system and chances for life.

This would also mean that life on Earth would begin dying very quickly. Plants are at the base of our food chain - the second they die off, the rest of the chain collapses. They would stop getting energy from the sun to photosynthesize and would wither away. Herbivores would go next, dying off in vast numbers as they struggled to find plants to eat. Carnivores would soon follow as their prey disappeared.

Fish would freeze to death in our oceans, and any animals depending on fish for food would starve. Our entire ecosystem would collapse almost overnight. Soon humans too would begin dying off as food rations ran out. Even if we did manage to survive the food shortage, we’d eventually suffocate as carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere with no plants to produce more oxygen. It’s likely that most of life would die in the ice age, but perhaps not all. Tardigrades, sometimes called “water bears,” are extremely tough creatures to kill. They’re microscopic organisms that can survive a wide array of extreme conditions - from boiling heat to freezing cold temperatures, and even the empty vacuum of space.

Of course, we may not even continue to orbit the Sun, depending on its remaining mass. If the Sun’s gravitational pull was sufficiently weakened, the planets would begin to drift away. The outer planets would likely go first, with the inner planets soon following. No longer confined to strict orbits, planets would slingshot off in straight lines.

If the Sun DID manage to retain its mass, it would have to be gigantic - more so than it is now. All of that mass packed inside its spheroid shape would now be dispersed across a flat surface. Assuming that the flat planes faced us, when Earth got a “full” Sun, it would likely take up most of our sky. While this mass would keep the planets in its orbit, those orbits would nonetheless be altered. It’s hard to predict how they’d change, but it would certainly be chaotic. However, if the Sun suddenly became flat, we wouldn’t feel the effects instantaneously. Since gravity travels at the same speed as light, Earth’s orbit wouldn’t be affected for eight minutes, and farther planets wouldn’t notice for much longer.

There’s also another possible scenario: what if, for whatever reason, the flat Sun was tidally locked to Earth? Due to tidal locking, we only ever see one “side” of the Moon. If the Sun rotated more slowly, so that a flat plane always faced us, we’d get plenty of sunlight. However, the now permanent dark side would be uninhabitable. Assuming that the Sun is still just as hot, the Sun side would be scorched and equally deadly. Life might only be possible at the edges, in the shadow, where temperatures would be more even. If there’d be an upside to this disastrous turn of events, it would be that people living in these areas would be treated to a constant sunset because of the angle the Sun hit the atmosphere.

And that’s What Would Happen if the Sun Was Flat.