What would happen if Earth's gravity increased by, let's say, 50% overnight?

Well I know one thing, it would cost NASA a lot more to put something up in space.

But in general, what would start to happen to us humanoids and life in general?

 

Just the Earth's gravity, or everything?

 

Just the Earth's gravity, it's a theoretical question I came up with last night and it made me wonder why 9.81 ms^2 is so unique there has to be consequences if it deviated away from this.

 

There was a recent, very interesting documentary on PBS about what would happen if the the earth were to stop spinning.
A few natural phenomenon I did not foresee.
Max.

 

My first impression:

First, a lot of people would drop dead in a matter of minutes.
Then, a lot more would fail to adapt and die.
Then, the survivors would attempt to continue with life, mostly the young and healthy would have a chance, but they would have to help each other, a lot.
A 100 pound person could survive suddenly weighing 150 pounds, but a lot of 180 pound people couldn't ambulate at 270 pounds.
Water won't get denser, so trying to rest by floating in water wouldn't work.
Just going into a body of water would be suicide.
Babies and toddlers would have a chance to develop strong enough bones.
The average life span would be a lot shorter.
Crops would fail from their own weight.
The atmosphere would become denser and closer to the surface.
Most vehicles would be useless with a 50% over weight condition.
Buildings and towers would collapse, taking out electric power, communication, and water supplies.
Geological faults would be triggered into collapse. Rain would still go through its cycles, but the drops would be smaller.

Large animals would die immediately. Small, hyperactive mammals, like rodents might survive the weight difference. Water creatures, a lot would probably just sink if they use gases for buoyancy. There goes a lot of the food supply.

OK. There's a start.

 

I bet that the majority of people would never have thought about this very important point:


"Crops would fail from their own weight."

 

Water won't get denser, so trying to rest by floating in water wouldn't work.
Just going into a body of water would be suicide.

I agree that water won't get denser. But since you are 99% water, it doesn't make sense that going into water is suicide.

Why would you sink? If you increase in weight, then the volume of water you displace would increase in weight as well.

 

...
Water won't get denser, so trying to rest by floating in water wouldn't work.
Just going into a body of water would be suicide.
...

Why would the relative densities of water and flesh change?

The crop thing was good. But plants do increase their stem thickness and strength in response to stresses when growing. So a plant grown while the g-forces are higher will grow more slowly and have a stronger stem.

But I still think you have a point, many of our crops have been bred/engineered for max yields and barely hold up their fruit now. The weight stresses from the fruit would not occur until after the plant had gorwn, so the stem would not be ready for that extra weight.

So they would quickly breed varieties with smaller lighter fruits. So the produce in the supermarket would get smaller...

 

I think you have a point. Water wouldn't get denser, but it would weigh more per volume, so displacing the same volume would displace 150% of its present weight.

 

The moon's orbit would change radically, playing havoc with tides and with the earth's own rotation, which would in turn alter the earth's magnetism, possibly exposing everything to increased solar radiation. The northern lights might look particularly spectacular for a while though...

Poorly constructed shelves would collapse under the weight of ornaments and novelty items.

 

And you'd have to inflate your car tyres to a higher pressure.

 

What would happen if Earth's gravity increased by, let's say, 50% overnight?

Overnight?

Don't be silly. That's a physical impossibility.

In my case, it took 20 years.

 

Overnight?

Don't be silly. That's a physical impossibility.

In my case, it took 20 years.

Weren't you always behind the times?

 

Weren't you always behind the times?

Well, I still write code in .asm...

 

Well, I still write code in .asm...

are you sure that wasn't .ass?

 

Some assy required.

 

Some assy required.

I'm always up for some assy.

 

If the earth's gravity increased by 50% overnight then everything would be dead because it would mean earth's mass increased dramatically most likely a huge astoroid hit and by some miracle merged with earth as opposed to pulverizing it.

 

So a lot of negative stuff when we increase the gravity overnight...which means a lot of good things if we decrease the gravity! Lets get this project started shall we?

 

Arewn't we doing that already?

What happens to gravity when we take a chunk of heavy stuff (like metal) and put it in orbit?