What If the Sun Got Bigger Every Minute?

You stand on a street in Honolulu at noon, the Sun straight overhead. Then its diameter starts doubling every minute while its surface stays exactly as hot as it is today. Within seconds your skin stings and the road goes soft. Then the puddles boil, the palms burst into flame on their own, the city burns and the harbour boils. Mercury goes in, then Venus, then the Sun's surface reaches your street, and the journey follows its edge outward past the planets, a spacecraft and the nearest stars. The Sun starts at its real size and temperature: radius 695,700 km, surface 5,772 K (IAU 2015). Sunlight is 1.36 kW per square metre and quadruples every minute: 5.45 kW at 1:00, 21.8 kW at 2:00, 87 kW at 3:00. Bare skin hurts at 2 kW (0:17, NOAA's level), wood bursts into flame on its own at 25 kW (2:06), the Sun is as wide as your fist at arm's length (10°) at 4:14, and from 5:13 its edge moves faster than light. Mercury (57.9 million km) goes in at 6:23, Venus (108 million km) at 7:17, and at 7:45 the surface reaches Earth: 62,900 kW per square metre, 32 seconds before the light the Sun gave off at noon would have. Then Mars (1.52 AU) at 8:21, Jupiter (5.20 AU) at 10:08, Neptune (30.2 AU) at 12:40, Voyager 1 (173 AU) at 15:11, the inner Oort cloud (2,000 AU) at 18:43 and Proxima Centauri (4.25 light-years) at 25:47. What is not real: the rule itself. No star can grow like this, and one with the Sun's mass could not stay this hot or this bright at this size. Everything else follows real physics. The Sun's mass stays one Sun, so the planets keep their orbits, even inside it. Light travel time is ignored, so everything is shown as it is, not as its light would arrive. Sunlight is counted above the air (at noon the air takes about 24%), melting and burning use no latent heat, and the landmarks are lined up on one side so the edge meets them in turn. At contact the Sun's gas around Earth is 8,600 times thinner than air; drag is ignored, and the ocean would take about 42 hours to boil away. The picture squeezes 28 minutes of the Sun's clock into 8.5, and in space the planets, comets and probe are drawn close enough to see. One doubling feels gentle; twenty-eight of them swallow the stars. 0:00 Noon in Honolulu 0:48 The puddles boil 1:18 The palms ignite 1:58 The city burns 2:28 The harbour boils 3:08 Faster than light 3:38 Mercury goes in 4:08 Half the sky 4:37 Inside the Sun 5:15 Jupiter 5:45 Saturn to Neptune 6:15 Voyager 1 6:45 The Oort cloud 7:15 Proxima Centauri 7:45 Bigger than the neighbourhood Spacecraft models: NASA. 3D models (CC-BY 4.0), by creator: 3DShowroom: https://sketchfab.com/models/b6a0be0c... 8sianDude: https://sketchfab.com/models/2429a825... 99.Miles: https://sketchfab.com/models/d96380fb... https://sketchfab.com/models/ec390503... https://sketchfab.com/models/c4a3993e... https://sketchfab.com/models/2305f0fe... Armored Wave: https://sketchfab.com/models/36f95efb... BHP3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/bab77902... https://sketchfab.com/models/2da5059c... https://sketchfab.com/models/7e359874... Ddiaz Design: https://sketchfab.com/models/ed2a0b37... https://sketchfab.com/models/652324cc... Doz3: https://sketchfab.com/models/855c4643... Dreaming Dogg: https://sketchfab.com/models/a2fb8e40... FrankFkN: https://sketchfab.com/models/dbb5b344... heymrwho: https://sketchfab.com/models/dabb692d... jimbogies: https://sketchfab.com/models/809e89fe... Libau Media: https://sketchfab.com/models/1d252561... Max: https://sketchfab.com/models/f69de131... MMC Works: https://sketchfab.com/models/58c33766... https://sketchfab.com/models/5db696c6... Next Spring: https://sketchfab.com/models/39052ea7... PlantCatalog: https://sketchfab.com/models/11cb3b5b... https://sketchfab.com/models/00bd2ea5... Pukka Films: https://sketchfab.com/models/8d3ea985... https://sketchfab.com/models/32cc4c5f... Renderpeople: https://sketchfab.com/models/e211ffd5... RM02: https://sketchfab.com/models/aaa41cca... solid3DDD: https://sketchfab.com/models/5fc4effc... SpatialNeglect: https://sketchfab.com/models/9166b13b... tonielpro520: https://sketchfab.com/models/34ade13d... https://sketchfab.com/models/cb5a3dc0... YourLocalJavaCarDealer: https://sketchfab.com/models/8cbbf935... #whatif #science #space #simulation