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We literally owe the days of our lives to the rotation of the Earth. As it spins around its axle, our planet, and everything on it, travels at an average speed of a little over 1,000 miles per hour (1,610 km/h), coming full circle in 24 hours.
But what if the planet stopped spinning for whatever reason? Far-fetched as that sounds, it could happen. Actually, it is happening, slowly, but it is happening.
According to Forbes, the increased number of earthquakes in recent years is to be blamed on a slowing down of Earth's rotation. Apparently, this is a cyclical and natural behaviour. and the few milliseconds per day lost over one period are slowly recovered in the following one.
But, as said, what would happen if the Earth suddenly stopped rotating? An online TV series called What If aired on Facebook this past weekend an episode answering exactly that question.
The short answer is: death for all. Since the Earth is traveling at 1,000 mph, all creatures on it are like passengers in a car, shooting down the road at that same speed.
Stopping all of a sudden would cause everyone, and everything, that is not firmly attached to the ground to be sent eastward at speeds equal to those of the Earth's rotation. That's like experiencing nuclear-blast force winds and, even if the force we are dealing with here is not nuclear, it is still deadly.
That’s because of Newton's first law of motion, or the law of inertia, that states that an object in motion (that would be you, moving together with the planet at a crazy speed) stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
In the video below, you can see some other effects of this unlikely scenario occurring. But, since we would all be dead long before Earth loses its magnetic field, no one would really care.
According to Forbes, the increased number of earthquakes in recent years is to be blamed on a slowing down of Earth's rotation. Apparently, this is a cyclical and natural behaviour. and the few milliseconds per day lost over one period are slowly recovered in the following one.
But, as said, what would happen if the Earth suddenly stopped rotating? An online TV series called What If aired on Facebook this past weekend an episode answering exactly that question.
The short answer is: death for all. Since the Earth is traveling at 1,000 mph, all creatures on it are like passengers in a car, shooting down the road at that same speed.
Stopping all of a sudden would cause everyone, and everything, that is not firmly attached to the ground to be sent eastward at speeds equal to those of the Earth's rotation. That's like experiencing nuclear-blast force winds and, even if the force we are dealing with here is not nuclear, it is still deadly.
That’s because of Newton's first law of motion, or the law of inertia, that states that an object in motion (that would be you, moving together with the planet at a crazy speed) stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
In the video below, you can see some other effects of this unlikely scenario occurring. But, since we would all be dead long before Earth loses its magnetic field, no one would really care.
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