Light energy (split from Can you move in space?)

[MPMin]

Please help me understand something:

Is light energy also known as photons?

When a current passes through a wire and creates a magnetic field around the wire, is the wire creating photons or photon energy as well as a magnetic field or are they the same thing:

To help me understand the concept of this i need to picture it on a larger scale; It takes about 8 mins for the light from the sun to reach the earth, If you were able to make the sun completely vanish instantly, would the earth still receive light and stay in orbit for 8 minutes after the sun disappeared?

[swansont]

Photons are particles of light (electromagnetic radiation) and energy is one of their properties.

Yes, the light and gravity from the sun would still exist for a little over 8 minutes, but the sun disappearing is not something that could actually happen.

[Janus]

1 hour ago, MPMin said:

Please help me understand something:

Is light energy also known as photons?

When a current passes through a wire and creates a magnetic field around the wire, is the wire creating photons or photon energy as well as a magnetic field or are they the same thing:

To help me understand the concept of this i need to picture it on a larger scale; It takes about 8 mins for the light from the sun to reach the earth, If you were able to make the sun completely vanish instantly, would the earth still receive light and stay in orbit for 8 minutes after the sun disappeared?

A static, unchanging magnetic field does not generate photons.   You need a changing magnetic field (or changing electric field) to do this.   So if you were to feed an alternating current through the wire, you would produce photon of the same frequency as the alternating current.   Electromagnetic waves/photons carry information about changes in the electromagnetic field.

Shut the Sun down, and the photon carrying the information about the state of the Sun just prior to the shutdown are still on their way to the Earth, and won't arrive at the Earth for ~8 min.

Gravitational waves, likewise, carry information about changes in the gravitational field and also travel at c.   Thus if the Sun were to suddenly vanish, mass and all ( an event that, in of itself, would violate the laws of physics), this change in the gravitational field would propagate at c to the Earth.

 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, MPMin said:

To help me understand the concept of this i need to picture it on a larger scale; It takes about 8 mins for the light from the sun to reach the earth, If you were able to make the sun completely vanish instantly, would the earth still receive light and stay in orbit for 8 minutes after the sun disappeared?

May be worth noting that this is not really anything to do with photons. The same is true in the classical view (where light is electromagnetic waves).