what would happen if the earth stopped spinning

Ther
P4L said:
I am very curious about what would happen if the earth stopped spinning and would like to hear your guys opinions
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There is a book called "What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe, that has this question & answer in it. It was a fun read.
 

P4L said:
who knows how to purposely make the earth stop spinning
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This guy does...
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... with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. (Blowing up the Earth coincidentally stops it from spinning...) šŸ˜
 

P4L said:
I am very curious about what would happen if the earth stopped spinning and would like to hear your guys opinions
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Earth is emotion because of the inertia which happened During its creation.
It continues to spend without anything being able to stop it and continues to spin because of the suns protons. So in theory, the sun would have to explode or go out in order for it to slow or stop. So the earth would probably be Annihilated either way.
 

Southern Creek said:
Earth is emotion because of the inertia which happened During its creation.
It continues to spend without anything being able to stop it and continues to spin because of the suns protons. So in theory, the sun would have to explode or go out in order for it to slow or stop. So the earth would probably be Annihilated either way.
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Earth does indeed spin because the collapsed solar nebula from which it formed developed a rotation; and that rotation was both retained by the formed planet and speeded up as gravitational pull compacted Earth to a higher density.
It continues to spin largely because there are no forces acting to stop it, but with tiny loss of momentum over time.
The only 'likely' (but rather unlikely) event which could stop it would be an impact in the opposite direction to its spin from another extremely large body. Even then, such an impact would be more likely to slow it down rather than stop it; the energy of the impact would in any case either incinerate everything on the surface and/or potentially turn the crust into a molten state, depending on size, velocity and trajectory of the impactor.
 

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Red-Coat said:
Even then, such an impact would be more likely to slow it down rather than stop it; the energy of the impact would in any case either incinerate everything on the surface and potentially turn the crust into a molten state, depending on size, velocity and trajectory of the impactor.
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Pretty much any way you slice it, the current residents of the planet would quickly become the previous inhabitants of the planet.
budo.gif
 

Red-Coat said:
Earth does indeed spin because the collapsed solar nebula from which it formed developed a rotation; and that rotation was both retained by the formed planet and speeded up as gravitational pull compacted Earth to a higher density.
It continues to spin largely because there are no forces acting to stop it, but with tiny loss of momentum over time.
The only 'likely' (but rather unlikely) event which could stop it would be an impact in the opposite direction to its spin from another extremely large body. Even then, such an impact would be more likely to slow it down rather than stop it; the energy of the impact would in any case either incinerate everything on the surface and/or potentially turn the crust into a molten state, depending on size, velocity and trajectory of the impactor.
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Is there a way that a small object going very fast could do that
 

P4L said:
Is there a way that a small object going very fast could do that
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Probably not. Small objects slam into the Earth every day; usually too small to have an impact. šŸ˜›
(Pun intended)

Anything small packing that much punch would likely blow right through like a bullet through an apple. (Think very small bullet--very large apple.)

There are a lot of variables (e.g. masses, densities, velocities, vectors, etc.), and a lot of math.
 

Bucket Lister said:
Probably not. Small objects slam into the Earth every day; usually too small to have an impact. šŸ˜›
(Pun intended)

Anything small packing that much punch would likely blow right through like a bullet through an apple. (Think very small bullet--very large apple.)

There are a lot of variables (e.g. masses, densities, velocities, vectors, etc.), and a lot of math.
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like an not too big meteor
 

Wouldn't feel so off balance I suppose...
 

P4L said:
Is there a way that a small object going very fast could do that
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No. It would need something very large indeed. The Chicxulub impactor on what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is estimated to have been about 10 kilometers in diameter and travelling at around 20 kilometers per second. It was probably one of several factors that led to the demise of the dinosaurs and other extinctions, but the Earth carried on spinning.

Probably the largest impactor for which we can provide a reasonable estimate was the Vredefort impactor on what is now South Africa, which was around 10-15 kilometers in diameter and travelling at around 15ā€“25 kilometres per second. That was around 4 billion years ago when Earth didnā€™t yet have any life, but it didnā€™t stop Earth from spinning.

Even the proposed Mars-sized impactor Theia, which may have created our Moon, didnā€™t stop us from spinning.
 

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