Earth, our home planet for 4.5 billion years has been spinning around its axis. Even though we cannot feel its spin, the blue planet still continues to rotate silently. But what would happen if Earth stopped spinning? Scientists revealed that we shouldn’t even think of such a scenario as no one could survive to tell the story.
If Earth eventually stopped spinning today, it would be disastrous. First, Earth rotates around its axis at about 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h) at its fastest region along the equator.
This implies that if our blue planet stops spinning today, almost everything and every living thing that is not attached to Earth will continue to move at this current speed of Earth’s rotation. Imagine you flying at 1,000 mph, that would be so catastrophic.
“The momentum of all the material that’s normally rotating — the water, the air, all the buildings and things like that — would cause them to keep going,” said Andrew Layden, a professor of physics and astronomy at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “So, they [would] split off the surface and just keep going around and around, basically, in a low orbit around the Earth.”
The scientist suggests that the parts of Earth that would be less affected would be the region near the poles which rotate slightly or do not rotate at all. However, the strong force of the non-rotating Earth would lead to strong tsunamis and Earthquakes. If this eventually happens, Everything on Earth would feel a severe impact.
What would happen if Earth stopped spinning? Scientist Reveals How This Occurrence Would Affect Life On Earth
Life on Earth would be heavily affected if Earth slowed its rotation speed or stopped rotating. For example, the length of days and nights would be extended longer than six months. Layden also said that our weather system would change as air and ocean current are heavily influenced by Earth’s rotation.
Layden said that the lack of rotation on Earth would heavily affect how well life could survive on our planet. Note that our planet generates a magnetic field that safeguards us from harmful radiation coming from space. Scientists think that the Earth’s magnetic field is associated with the flowing liquid metal existing in our planet’s outer core.
This tends to generate electrical currents and a resulting magnetic field because of the rotation of our planet. Scientists also think that the loss of Mars’ magnetic field billions of years ago made the planet lose its atmosphere and become uninhabitable, Layden reveals.
So, what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning? Scientists say that the Earth will never stop rotating. This is because all planet astronomers have discovered that rotation rotates. Even stars rotate as well. Astronomers reveal that stars are created from massive circling masses of gas and dust that condense together slowly.
For example, our solar system was created out of a massive disk of debris surrounding the Sun. the leftover nebulae materials that created the solar system were moving in circular patterns as well. Because of this, most planets in the solar system orbit the Sun following the same direction.
Why Planets Rotate
Scientists suggest that planets rotate because objects hit them, mostly during their formation process. Hence, if any planet could possibly stop rotating, it might be because a foreign object collides with the planet, Layden said. The scientist also said that if an object hits a planet, it can also slow down the movement of that celestial body.
For instance, if a massive planet-sized celestial body hits Earth, it could counteract our planet’s spin, or even make our home planet spin in the opposite direction. Astronomers suggest that this could have happened to one planet in our solar system, which is Venus.
“Venus rotates very slowly — in fact, very slowly backward compared to Earth and [all of] the other inner, terrestrial planets,” Layden said, possibly due to such a collision.
Uranus is also around its orbit in the opposite direction as Earth. Unlike other planets, Uranus rotates on its side. Astronomers think that both Uranus’ and Venus’ original rotations might have been stopped and reversed by on massive impact, or several smaller impacts that disrupt their rotations due to a large gravitational force.
Scientists said that Venus’ case might have been because of the Sun’s gravitational force reacting on its thick atmosphere. However, Uranus’s unique rotation might have been caused by a massive moon that left its orbit. So, what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning? As for Earth, we are safe from being affected by a massive gravitational force.
In fact, if Earth eventually collides with another planet-size object, that is when we will start showing concern about unexplained anomalies stopping our planet’s rotation.
