What would happen if the Earth suddenly started falling?

falling implies a direction... on earth, falling implies towards the centre of earth and is caused by it's gravitational pull.

If the earth was to "fall", the logical gravitational pull that it would fall towards is the Sun... so hypothetically, if you ignored the physics that is in motion and the earth begins to fall... it'll end up smushed into the side of the sun and be disintegrated.

It already is falling. Learn more about physics to see how.

@bugs. You can fall towards something and away from something. You don't have to fall into something.

Actually... Earth *is* falling. Constantly. The Sun's gravity is pulling us in - however, our lateral speed (about 66,600mph) keeps us from *hitting* the sun.

Falling relative to what? If the sun, it would get very hot. "Falling" is pretty meaningless otherwise. You can only fall into something.

If the Earth fell into the Sun, it (and we) would be vaporized. If the Earth fell into space, it would depend on the direction. If it stayed in the plane of the other planets orbits, it could be captured by one of the gas giants (Jupiter or Saturn, for example) depending on their relative positions. Or it could go into interstellar space, where it is unlikely to ever meet another body. Either of these last two possibilities would result in freezing solid.

The Earth is always falling in its orbit around the sun. The sun's gravity pulls the Earth inward, but that is balanced by the Earth's velocity in its orbit pulling it outward.

Its a shame they don't teach basic science in schools anymore.

If the Earth's orbital speed were to somehow slow down, it would fall into a lower orbit around the Sun. If it were to speed up, it would jump to a higher orbit. If it were to stop completely, it would fall into the Sun in something like 48 days (by my calculations, although others have come up with 65). Don't worry, there is nothing that could change our orbital speed in the foreseeable future.

it is!! very slowly as it revolves around the sun
imagine the sun pulling the earth towards it is like neil moonwalking except less gravitational pull occurs

xD

kind of hard to fall down in outerspace.

If we dropped out of orbit, we would all freeze to death
If we became caught in the gravitational pull of the sun, we would burn to death

guess will have to wait to see if that ever happens and find out lol