Can you imagine that, suddenly, the Earth stopped spinning? What would happen? Life would change in an instant if our planet suddenly stopped spinning. We tell you.
Hypothesis: rotation stops
Earth is the largest of the four terrestrial or rocky planets in our solar system. It was formed approximately 4.55 billion years ago and some of its most characteristic qualities with reference to the Sun are rotation, translation, precession, nutation, Chandler wobble, and perihelion precession . The first two are probably the most familiar to everyone and the ones we have talked about in detail in the past.
Now, although rotation is the movement of our planet around the Sun, today we are talking about the consequences of the second of these main movements of the planet: the rotation of the Earth on its own axis. Imagine that, due to undetermined consequences (such as tidal blockage), the Earth suddenly stops rotating on itself.
The consequences
If the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, it would be hugely catastrophic for much of the planet’s surface.
The rotation speed of the Earth is 1,770 kilometers per hour (km/h) at the equator, and 0 km/h at the poles. The most direct consequence of the sudden stoppage of the Earth’s rotation is that all living beings and objects on Earth would be thrown out. All land masses would be pushed out; anything that wasn’t attached to the bedrock would be thrown out, so trees, rocks, buildings… everything would be sucked into the atmosphere (so would we). Moving rocks and oceans would cause earthquakes and tsunamis.
Although we do not feel the earth’s spin, we do feel its effects when we stop in our tracks if we are in a vehicle, for example. Thus, if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, everything on the Earth’s surface at the equator would suddenly move sideways at more than 1,600 km/hour. Although we would not be ejected into space, because the escape velocity from Earth is about 40,000 km/hour, it would still cause incredible damage on Earth. Just imagine the oceans moving at more than a thousand kilometers per hour; gradually the oceans would migrate poleward from the equator. There would be two huge bodies of water disconnected from each other. Apocalyptic science fiction movies have left us some images for our imagination.
A huge megacontinent would also form around the Earth at the equator. We could travel around the Earth on this equatorial continent and always stay on solid ground, ignoring the icy cold on the night side and the scorching heat on the day side.
Day and night
If it stopped spinning altogether we would have half a year of daylight and half a year of night ; that is, day and night would no longer work in the same way. The Earth would have the same position in front of the Sun for half a year. One hemisphere ‘baked’ and the other in darkness, very cold. By day, during those six months, the temperature of the surface will depend on the latitude in which we are, being much hotter than now at the equator than at the poles where the light rays are more inclined and the heating efficiency is minor. The only theoretically habitable part of Earth would be a small strip of twilight land between the two halves.
there would be no seasons
Without any rotation, the planet would also have no seasons. It would be an inhospitable place. Although we would still have the north pole of the planet, where the Sun’s radiation would be at its lowest angle, and an equator, where the light would hit more directly, there would no longer be spring, summer, autumn or winter. Only 6 daytime months and 6 nighttime.
Altered atmospheric patterns
Atmospheric patterns on Earth are also tied to the planet’s rotation. If the planet were to stop spinning, it would greatly change the way air currents move. It would be the end of hurricanes. And any change in air currents could result in deserts appearing where there are currently forests, for example, or in the now frozen tundra becoming habitable.
Goodbye to the auroras and much more
If the Earth were to stop spinning, its magnetic field would no longer regenerate and would decay to a residual value, thus the ‘northern lights’ would disappear and the Van Allen radiation belts would probably disappear, as would our protection against the cosmic rays and other high-energy particles. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from cosmic rays and electromagnetic storms from the Sun, among other things. Without a magnetic field, life could not resist stellar radiation.
If everything on this planet suddenly stopped moving, it could mean the instant destruction of life as we know it. Should we worry about this possibility? Absolutely not. We can breathe easy. The probability of such an event is practically zero in the next few billion years.
Reference: Ask the Astronomer, NASA
NASA: Escape Velocity
NASA: What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?
Birth cluster simulations of planetary systems with multiple super-Earths: initial conditions for white dwarf pollution drivers Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 512, Issue 2, May 2022, Pages 2460–2473, https://doi.org/10.1093 /mnras/stac602 Published: 08 March 2022
