What would happen if the earth stopped rotating?

In a recently published article Business Contentgeomorphologist and planetary scientist Joseph Levy helped Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which our planet suddenly stops rotating. According to a professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, USA, the consequences of this sudden braking could be disastrous. After all, we’re not talking about a Beetle, but a planet weighing 5.9 sextillion tons.

Note that in addition to all this mass, the west-east rotation speed is 1,674 km/h, almost twice that of the Boeing 787. Then imagine walking on a sunny beach, says Levy. Everything seems slow and calm because your body, the sand, and the sea are moving at the same speed.

But if this world suddenly stopped, according to Newton’s first law of inertia, the first result would be: is literally flying east at about 1,000 miles per hour. From here you can see that no matter where you land, whether on land or in the ocean, it will definitely kill you.

Effects of stopping the earth’s rotation

Logically, you will not be alone in such a disaster. Beyond the churning of the oceans, Even features that are strongly attached to the ground, such as trees and buildings, will not be safe. “Earth materials are strong under pressure but very weak under tension,” Levy recalls.

This means that much of the stability of these structures comes from the weight of their respective floors and support beams. But, After a sudden stop of the Earth, neither the mass nor the inertial force fixed to the ground can resistSince it will be stronger than the mortar that holds the bricks together, it may cause collapse or collapse.

The good news, says Levy, is that if you have relatives in Antarctica or just really love penguins, they’ll probably survive with some bruises. “Near the poles, the rotation axis is much smaller, so the rotation speed is also smaller,” the scientist explains, but warns that for this the individual must stay at about 89.9 degrees latitude. It is 11 kilometers away from the poles. The effect will be a storm effect.

What if the Earth’s rotation gradually stopped?

Like, “In natural systems, nothing comes to a complete halt at once.”Levy recalls that a gradual slowdown in the Earth’s rotation would be more plausible, in addition to preventing you from flying across the beach with an ice cream in your hand. But he warns that things will still be tense when the movement stops completely.

To explain this, the geoscientist gives an example showing that although the Earth’s orbit keeps half the planet at night and the other in full sunlight, this process takes six months instead of the usual 12 hours. In a constantly illuminated hemisphere, the impact on crops would be devastating, not to mention the evaporation of much of the water..

On the other hand, The part of the Earth exposed to a six-month night will also cause plants to die and water left over from the previous “day” to freeze. Since higher latitudes would theoretically be safer, life in places like Brazil would become hell, forcing people to adopt nomadism, following daylight to avoid freezing and at the same time protecting themselves from it.

What are the real risks of the Earth stopping rotating?

The professor of Earth and Environmental Earth Sciences explains: The hypothesis that the Earth’s rotation is slowing down is not entirely implausible, because in practice this already occurs “due to a process called tidal braking”. The phenomenon caused by gravitational interactions between our planet and the Moon reduces the Earth’s rotation rate, but this happens gradually.

According to NASA, the drag effect created by our natural satellite has an extremely small effect on our rotation: Earth’s rotation slows by 2.3 milliseconds every century. Therefore it is unlikely that the Moon will stop our planet. “The Earth is much larger than the Moon and, as a result, has much more angular momentum,” Levy concludes.

The Earth’s angular momentum and the amount of rotational motion (taking into account rotation and translation) make it nearly impossible for any object in space to completely paralyze us. not including It was a huge collision., In this case, the least of the problems will be the slowdown itself. Therefore, Levy concludes, the world should not stop for now. But when in doubt, hold on to your ice cream.

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