What Would the Earth Look Like if it Stopped Spinning?

Someone has too much time on their hands.

Wow... What a waste of time... I know, how about we see what the world would look like if it a rhombus! Or maybe a low res pineapple!

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."

I am of the firm belief that indulging ones curiosity is never a waste of time. even if there is no obvious direct application for the result, a question has been asked and answered. That makes it worth the time taken in my book.

particularly ironic is Brainstorm101's comment followed by that particular quote.

Well ok then.

If the world stops spinning, half of the world would be completely frozen over and the other half would be in perpetual baking sunlight.

I for one, would move.

--GTO--

I can't argue with you there friend! ;)

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."

This model does not account for the fact that if the earth stopped spinning, the sun would cook each area for around half a year, and then that area would freeze the other half.

I know you may think... oh, winter and summer. But no... winter and summer are the result of a slight wobble of the directness of the sun. If the earth stopped spinning it would result in temperatures well above 150-200 degrees for half the year, and temperatures well below negative 100-150 degrees for the other half.

Basically instead of a day being 24 hours, a day would be around 182 days long. The temperature difference would be intense; as in gas and ice.

We would have to be nomadic living in only the areas of the earth transitioning between light and dark.

Clearly I take too long writing comments :)

I wouldn't argue that the days would get hot and the nights cold, but I do think that the water on earth would cause for some interesting effects at the twilight areas on earth. I would imagine that the sunlit side would maintain a high humidity that would cause for a persistent fog that may reflect sunlight and regulate temperature. This would last until the solar winds stripped the atmosphere because there would no longer be a magnetic field generated by a churning molten core that the earth's rotation contributes to.

What about the effect of gravity on earthly bound objects that are no longer countered by centrifugal force?

If the earth stopped spinning we would be extinct so who cares?

i have always wondered what would happen if the earth instantly stopped spinning. would there be like an instant pull of inertia in the direction of spin?

and lots of people would die?

I think it is an interesting curiosity.

On the subject of not spinning:

The core would still spin in the same relative fashion. Earth is only spinning relative to the local Solar system. Perhaps compared to the universe we are constantly still. Magnetic field should stay up and running no problem.

We would not have the exact same same issue as somewhere like Mercury, where each side of the planet is an extreme. For one, we would have seasons still, though greatly exaggerated. However, the oceans and atmosphere would provide a cooling effect as high pressure/heat gradient produced by the intense unending sun would naturally cause the heat to diffuse to the other side of the planet. Because each side will only be in direct sun for 1/4 the year, a complete dessication of any facet of the planet is unlikely.

These are just speculation, only to counter speculation given by others because they have failed to take differences into consideration when referencing other known phenomena.

On a completely provable point however, the change in gravity: It would be minuscule. The poles of our planet technically have no counter to gravity, as the centrifugal force is perpendicular to the acceleration of gravity.

Gravity ~~ 9.8m/s^2
Centficial Acceleration = v^2/r

v= 1667kM/hr ~~463m/s
r=6378100m

463^2/6378100 = .0336m/s^2 So gravity's pull would increase from about 9.8 to 9.83, or about 1/3 of a percent increase. Its enough to create a difference in the ocean because of the varying strength as you move along latitude, but overall it won't change much.

My thinking is that while "perfect" according to the story there would be devastated areas do to constant sunlight and frozen tundras where there isn't constant sun. Think of the moon. One side really hot the other really cold. I know it wouldn't likely be as severe as the moon but I do believe more zones would become inhospitable to at the very least current life.

First off, this story is fundamentally flawed...centrifugal force does not exist, not in the fasion this article seems to portray.

Centficial Acceleration is only the force which is already there which resists the tendancy of an object in motion to travel in a straight line, in this case, it's provided by gravity.

If the earth indeed stopped spinning, I imagine that the side not facing the sun would be frozen, a sort of perpetual ice age. And of course it would be the end of life as we know it, probably even the end of the human race, unless we evolve really fast to adapt to the new conditions.

We do evolve pretty quickly, I mean we've only been around..10k years and look at all the different races best suited for the environments they live in.

On the frozen/burnt conversations: Some of you get it, but others I think don't realize that just bc it's not turning doesn't mean a different side won't be facing the sun throughout the year. Granted seasons will be immensely long and intense, caused by the orbit instead of our tilt, but not permanent. I think we'd end up on the coastline where temperatures would be more consistent due to the high heat capacity of water as well as currents that would be moving said heat around the poles (hopefully).

We evolve slowly Coolhand. Stop using religious dogma for facts.

If the earth did stop turning, the only place that humans could hope to (easily) survive the temperatures would be in the "twilight areas" where the winds would be nearly unsurviveable. The atmosphere would be heated, thus rising, on the light side and air at the surface would rush across the twilight area from the dark side to replace it. I don't know the math but the wind speeds would have to be at least in the hundreds of knots.

This is all considering that there is still an atmosphere to worry about.

@gizmowiz lol what? I didn't use religion to back my arguement at all. I thought the oldest skeleton found that was deemed homo sapien (read 'humans as we know them') was found to be like 10000 years old? Maybe I'm wrong but I never quoted the Bible or showed any religious kookiness. I even mentioned evolution for God's sake. Take a chill pill before jumping on someone's back next time.

Alright alright so my memory might SUCK but I'm still offended. Checked on wikipedia's page for homo sapien, which says "Mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago."

The weather would be very strange I would imagine and depending on where mountain ranges ended up would make it even stanger. A bonus for us would be taht the constant winds near the light/dark transition would be perfect for wind turbines and would solve the energy crisis.

I spin after too many beers. Will that help?

If Earth stops spinning, will Democrats stop acting so dizzy?

well it's nice to know that all the third world countries/continents (South America, Mexico, Africa, India) will still be there

Not only that, but one side would be roasted, while the other side would be frozen as Antarctica in the winter time. The seas on one side would boil, the vapor would travel to the other side and fall as snow on the already frozen sea.

The weight of the cold sea would pile up as the hot sea would empty, and the axis of the earth would shift. There would be a wobble at first, until the rotation of the earth would stabilize around its new axis.

There would be a band of moderate temperature between the hot and cold sides, though liquid sea would trickle toward the hot side and would also evaporate.

Thats pretty cool.

you never considered a possibility. what if i want to fry???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@CoolHand032

Oldest human remains found in Ethiopia
'Ardi' lived 4.4 million years ago

www.nypost.com/p/news/international/item_KSVcJUoawxktxk6UzgGFtK

This will be obvious to everyone once you've all read it. Given the reversals of magnetic flux observable in the geological record, and given the improbability of absolute constancy of rotation in geological time (Venus rotates the OTHER way, volcanos change rotational speed--never mind asteroid impacts), our lost 'land bridges' among continents has a reasonable and likely explanation. A complete halt would not be necessary, merely acceleration (delta speed). Thus we may find a measure to observe when such changes in rotation have taken place. After all, we have the results of many collisions all around us, it is just a question of winding things back up and applying the proper equations.

@jg16477
You're right everything is better fried.

No worries, Superman will just fly around the Earth super-fast to restart the rotation. After all, he did it in Superman I. In fact, he reversed the rotation and then reversed it again, so this should be no problem for him.

For anyone who flames this post as not being remotely possible, rethink it, because it's just as realistic as the Earth's rotation coming to a halt in the next millenia.

Just to respond to comments that stopping the earth's rotation would cause days and nights to cease- this is wrong, the reason that one side of the moon is always facing earth is because it has just enough rotation as it changes location so that we always see just the one side...

Same with the earth if it were to cease having days and nights it would have to have reduced rotation in the proper direction so that one side is always facing the sun.
If the rotation was completely nullified we'd still have days and night due to our rotation around the sun (altho it would still have about the same profound impacts on the environment).

Even if we ignore the idea that one side of the planet would be roasted while the other would be frozen, the author missed one really important detail. The earth's crust itself would reshape itself if it lost its radial momentum (the true term for "centrifugal force").

An example: tons of silt have been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico for millennia. It should be full by now, except that the crust keeps getting pushed down by its weight.

Other examples: The receding glaciers created the Great Lakes. In the absence of the glacier's weight, the crust under the Great Lakes is rising.

A better way to phrase this is through tidal forces. Our water sloshes around currently based on the gravity of the moon and sun, but SO DOES THE ROCK. It just doesn't do it quite as much.

If the earth were to stop suddenly, the water might do this until the rock had time to catch up with it. Some subsidence would happen immediately, but the rest wouldn't take much longer. I suspect, though, that any slowing that didn't result in the oceans completely scouring the continents before settling there, though, would happen at a speed that would give the rock time to keep pace.

Also, Blackmarch, planetary rotation and moon rotation is generally measured based on the object that it orbits. This is called "synodic period", in contrast to "sidereal period", which is rotation relative to the rest of the universe. When a planet has no synodic rotation it has a day length of infinite, a sidereal period of one year, and is considered "tide locked", as is our moon. This is a pretty common state for moons to be in.

Even if Witold Fraczek didn't learn anything useful from performing this exercise, the rest of us can by discussing it. :)

"The immobile planet would be a perfect, if somewhat mountainous, sphere."

More to the point, the immobile planet would be a perfect, if somewhat mountainous sphere... that's mostly dead.

If the ball stops spinning, the day and night are quite long (`182.5 former days).
Technically, a year would equal a day.
That's a lot of hours to work to reach lunch... but, there won’t be any (land based) food.
I won't sweat the leap year.. no one be around to care.

The truth may be far more dazzling than the data or the dogma.
Sunrise to sunset would be somewhere around 4380 hours.
Even with the energy redistributing storms that the mega oceans would spawn, the equatorial belt would be constantly blistering then freezing. The 4380 hours of night would kill off the plants - which if there were any, would be buried under 4380 hours of snow. At the orbital sunrise interface, whatever snow had accumulated would catastrophically melt flushing off any residual soil opportunities. After which, only equatorial convergence fronts would bring rain from the two polar oceans for the next 4380 hours of day.

Aquatic life might survive/continue... but, land base flora and fauna could not develop and would not survive.

The planet would have two completely divergent biospheres.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Maybe next week they can model what would happen if the Earth spontaneously lost its atmosphere.
How long would it take for the oceans to boil away?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Fact is stranger than fiction.
In the Movie “2001 A Space Odyssey”, the driving impetus for sending astronauts to Jupiter was the discovery of a buried monolith on the moon.
Cute,- but, it’s not nearly as intriguing as the Moon itself…

It’s a lot closer… yet, no one had ever seen the moon’s entire surface.
What kind of creator (or, weird twist of cosmic fate) would manifest the orbital dynamics where an objects orbit and rotation would be synchronized?
I don’t believe that astronomers have noticed such a relationship any where else.
The Earth’s distance from the Sun, the Earth’s tilt off its orbital plane, the Earth’s magnetic field, the Earth’s rate of rotation, the availability of water, and the Moon being there to stir the oceans and the Earth’s molten core – all conspire to give us the seasons and the climatology that we enjoy today. It’s all one elegant cosmological machine…

Yet, The whole dynamic is independent of the Moon’s rotation.

Since the Moon is assumed to be more of a loose collection of rubble, a drastically faster rotational speed could cause it to fly apart.
But, certainly speeding it up 2, 3, 4 times its current rate wouldn’t effect anything on the moon – the moons orbit – or, the tides here on Earth.
Slowing it down further – or, stopping its rotation all together, would not affect life on Earth – or, the moon’s climatology.

But, if some extra-terrestrial intelligence wanted to entice planetary life forms to crawl up out of their gravitation well to look around the cosmos, a good motivation might be to hide a side of their nearest celestial body. All things considered, a non-synchronous relationship is far more likely. From casual observation of the lunar surface, one has to notice the lunar craters. This is evidence of many massive collisions. These collisions affected the Moon’s mass, orbit and rotation. And, from the look of it, it took quite a while to get it tuned precisely to its present day state. Like a clock maker fine tuning the timing of a massive clock.

It’s simply not normal.
No other planet constantly faces the Sun.
No other moons constantly face their planets.
The statistical probability of causal chaotic forces tweaking a mass body into such an orbital dynamic is beyond astronomical.
Once this unique configuration was achieved, these catastrophic cosmological tweaking events spontaneously stopped. Delivering a configuration which has remained stable for 1000s of years.. at least, as long as we’ve been around.

It’s hard to appreciate today – but, once upon a time the church, the Popes, the scientists and the astronomers didn’t play well together. Both had valid observations. Both had valuable information. Neither was listening to the other. The clerics failed to look up into the night sky and see that the astronomers were on their side. They just needed to ask the right questions.

The truth maybe more dazzling than the data or the dogma.

Interesting! I hope that everyone njoyed the recent holiday and has a great weekend.

Interesting! I meant enjoyed. Sorry about the typo.

noting the obvious, If Earth stopped spinning suddenly would it not just plunge straight into the sun?

Stopped Spinning... Stopped Spinning realitive to what? The same side of the moon always faces the earth but it is still spinning realitive to the sun. The earth will always spin realitive to something.

If the Earth stops spinning, it will become as Venus.

Atmospheric pressure will increase by orders of magnitude.

All liquid water will boil off.

The atmosphere will contain vastly more water vapor and methane (released from the methane hydrate beds on the ocean floors).

Global warming really will happen, and the surface temperature on all sides of the globe will be in the high hundreds of degrees F.

The Venusian environment is different from the Terrestrial environment in large part because the Earth rotates and Venus pretty much does not.

Given that all this water is pulled to the equator, more significantly this would seem to have something to say about IPCC predictions for melting ice caps.

Given that melted ice caps would relieve weight off the poles, which would then rise, yet at the same time the water would spin towards the center, thus pulling away from much of the earth's land mass and creating falling, not rising, seas.

Does the IPCC know about this?

We are all standing on earth due to Gravity. If the earth loose its gravity, everything will start floating. The water, atmosphere will also be displaced. We will have to look for another planet to live on or create a space station for everyone to continue living.....

I'm just saying that wouldn't the force required to stop the earth from spinning also slow down earths orbit substantially, causing us to get closer to the sun. i.e. getting hit by something the size of the moon. unless you have a way to stop earth from spinning without stopping its momentum, which seems impossible to me.

People should remember that a tidelocked world has not stopped spinning. It just spins slowly enough to match the planet's revolution around the primary. A world that actually doesn't spin at all thanks to the pernicious plans of some comic book villain, would be one in which the sun would slowly move in the sky as the planet moved in its orbit.

@Vorless DarkChaos

He was talkin about homo sapiens ardi was not a homo sapien that thing was more like a gorilla in my opinion.

if the surface stops, the core will stop, the core stops, wouldn't the magnetic field that protects us from radiation stop? if you were lucky enough to be protected from that radiation on yourself, the atmosphere would burn away from that radiation?

not to mention if we weren't spinning anymore, wouldn't earth be shot like a giant slingshot into space?

basically, with no rotation, your left with a gigantic spaceship...

here is something to ponder. has anyone ever thought of using miniature black holes to create gravity "wells", for propulsion? a giant atom smasher in space forcing a vessel forward through the creation of directional micro-gravity... would be an amazing feat. it would free us from propulsion being driven by pushing an object forward through space with a rocket, ion engine, solar sail, etc. it would become more efficient as it left the immense gravity of our solar system, enabling it room to navigate around solar bodies as it slowly accelerated, and then accelerate even faster once it cleared the other outer exoplanets. any thoughts?

"Someone has too much time on their hands." "Wow... What a waste of time." are really quite stunningly stupid comments to write.

What a great article to read as there are so many comments by intellectuals; our modern day philosophers! Anyone who has mentioned "wast of time" in their comments implying that such an article or discussion of said article would be a wast of tempus, then I must say you are all morons!

Whether you like it or not, the guys down the pub having a drunk conversation of reality to the web bloggers commenting; we are the Modern Socrates and Platos!

Interesting thoughts.... I for one would imagine in the word stopped spinning we would be doomed! But what would happen to the Earth?

I would hypothesise that as the Earth orbited around the sun instead of the Earth's rotation giving us night and day, we would rely on the annual solar orbit to give us this same effect of experiencing night and day.

Man those days and nights would be long! But after a while (maybe 5 to 10 years) the Earth would be come a dust ball; the side that had the first half the Sun's heat and light would lose its water in that half year orbit, and then as the Earth continues its orbit showing "The Dark Side of the Earth" (New Pink Floyd album name if it ever happens! lol) all the ice and water would melt, flood some areas of the "Dust Side of the Earth" before it too loses all its water to evaporation.

Only posible water supplies to remain would be underground reservoirs.

I like the day dream theory (which you never know could work!!) mentioned way up in the Comments about using a black hole drive engine to propel the Earth through space to a new Star (maybe using the Earth's mass as a gravity pool to do something Dr Whoey or Star Trecky but i digress)

You know those furry brown coconuts you get at fairs? Imagine that is the Earth, and rotate it in your hand. The milk on the inside (like the centre of the Earth) would also rotate in the same direction of the coconut. Stop rotating the coconut and the milk will stop too. If the Earth stops spinning, so will the liquid centre.

More to the point; how would you get the Earth to start spinning again should it stop? Considering that half the Earth would be destroyed through 182 days of winter, I would think about causing an epic chain reaction, try detonating Yellow Stone national Park and other volcanic/tectonic areas of the Americas to "Jump Start" the planet, but most prob wouldn't work! (Sorry guys nothing personal I love you all but merely a thought!!) :) EVEN MORE DISCUSSIONZZZZZZZZ ;P

That was kind of neat.

If you were on the correct side of some beautiful woman and the Earth stopped rotating suddenly, it would be an incredible version of taking a "Come over, Dear!" corner in your '73 Malibu.

Nah, this map is all wrong. Why would the world's water be affected, but not the crust? The earth is liquid inside as well. Wouldn't the whole earth altogether change from ellipsoidal to spherical, causing massive earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic action from the cracking mantle? That would kill off most people. Then once it stopped it wouldn't be all bad. There would be one big polar ice cap and one unbearably hot pole, but everywhere in between might be nice, except for the massive constant hurricane season near the warm side. The ocean and wind currents would would circulate like water boiling in a pot. I would imagine you could surf all day, every day.

PS: The hypothetical is not "if the earth stopped spinning relative to the galaxy/universe/dimension x." We have to assume it's relative to the sun, the only relevant gravitational pull on earth.

What a great discussion, I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments, there would be every kind of weather anomaly imaginable, but we are a very resilient race and I think we would adapt if the earth held itself together.

causing us to get closer to the sun. i.e. getting hit by something the size of the moon. unless you have a way to stop earth from spinning without stopping its momentum, which seems impossible to me.discount louis vuitton

As it spins, Earth drags air and water from the oceans to some extent. Sudden stop would produce lots of wind and huge tides for some time, due to inertia. Almost all life forms over the continents would be washed away. Could be good for surfing.

what a bunch of know it alls - none of you have a clue what would happen if the earth stopped spinning - you never will because you will never learn enough in your short life spans to figure out anything so incomprehensible. Your explanations are devoid of anything even remotely resembling science. They sound more like something the writers of spiderman, HighLights or wikipedia would come up with. The most uplifting realization is that the average IQ of the world's population will obviously NOT be diminished if the world does indeed stop spinning. It is always refreshing to read the rants of mindless G-Dless heathens who have turned their backs on their own intellects ... thank you!

what a rediculess waist of time on both sides. Yet it proves the damage to science by separating scientific fields and no integral picture around. Long live superficiality!

science doesn't do anything just because it is bored ;)
don't you guys read any of alternative?Zecharia Sitchin's translations of old Sumerian texts tell us that earth stood still for a day or so when nibiru(planet x)10th planet or whatever you want to call it reached the closest point in our solar system.

:)))do your homework as Mr.Maxwell said

cheers

it is interesting to see that at such a simple piece of curiosity could cause so many people to comment and debate