What if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning? Would we all fly off?

A cool video...worth a look 9min. long.

sci2.tv.../#!/videos/810

When the screen opens...look on the bottom and the video is on the far right.

If the earth stopped suddenly the oceans would keep moving. Each ocean would spill onto land.

Quite the reverse, I would have thought.

The spin creates centrifugal force which counters gravity.

Without that, Earth's gravitational pull on us would be stronger.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

vid doesn't work - but rather than fantasies about what would happen IFF the earth stopped spinning - how about details of HOW the earth could suddenly stop spinning ?

a reply to: CJCrawley

Gravity would be the same.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: nighthawk1954

vid doesn't work - but rather than fantasies about what would happen IFF the earth stopped spinning - how about details of HOW the earth could suddenly stop spinning ?

I would think one side would be dark and cold, and other other side always sunny and hot. Would the moon keep spinning too? I don't know

Also, why does the Earth keep spinning nearly perpetually? Perhaps that kinetic energy could be harnessed to make more energy from the motion

a reply to: nighthawk1954

Here Is Your Answer!!!

You might think that we would all be catapulted from the surface and into space but this isn’t true. A sudden pause would cause everything on its surface to suddenly move at a speed of over 1,000 mph (1,600 kph) in a sideways direction. Since the velocity needed to escape the Earth’s gravity is over 24,800 mph, we stay tacked to the surface, yet jolted forward. Also, the oceans would be thrown into chaos, sloshing sideways and swamping anything and everything in their path. The speed the Earth rotates slows down as you move from the equator and towards the poles and so standing at the North and South poles, you would hardly feel a thing!

Peace everybody!!!

We would not fly off as gravity would keep us earth bound. We would all be rather splattered as we (and everything else) went flying from naught to God knows - I guess we would all go at 1,000 miles an hour into the nearest hill!

I think the earth spins at 1,000 mph at the equator. I guess if you were sitting on one of the poles you would be OK. Does than mean only two people would survive? The new Adam and Eve running towards each other over a rather messy end to everyone else.

Regards

originally posted by: Philippines

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: nighthawk1954

vid doesn't work - but rather than fantasies about what would happen IFF the earth stopped spinning - how about details of HOW the earth could suddenly stop spinning ?

I would think one side would be dark and cold, and other other side always sunny and hot. Would the moon keep spinning too? I don't know

Also, why does the Earth keep spinning nearly perpetually? Perhaps that kinetic energy could be harnessed to make more energy from the motion

The moon would not stop spinning, and it would keep orbiting the Earth.

The Earth keeps spinning because in zero G you need another force to counter that movement.

That force can be reaction thrust (think rockets), impact force (huge object hitting), friction, and gravity from another body.

The Sun's and the moon's gravity do pull on the Earth, but the pull is weak enough that it will take billions of more years before the Earth becomes locked and not spin anymore (the sun will actually expand into a red giant and consume the Earth before that happens though).

The moon used to be a lot closer, and Earth used to spin a lot faster. Slowly over time, the moon's gravity helped slow the Earth down to what we have today, but it was also moving slowly away from us so that it's braking force is not any where near as much as it was in the very distant past.

As CharlieSpeirs posted above: if the Earth were to come to a sudden stop, everything on it's surface would suddenly try to keep moving at 1,000 Mph towards the East (less speed the closer you get to the poles). Just like the people in a car keep trying to go 60 Mph when the car hits a brick wall and get thrown through the wind shield if they don't have their safety belts on.

Of course the Earth will have other major problems to (besides most of us becoming a bloody smear on the first unmovable object we hit at 1,000 Mph): all that kinetic energy of the Earth's spin.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: nighthawk1954

Here Is Your Answer!!!

You might think that we would all be catapulted from the surface and into space but this isn’t true. A sudden pause would cause everything on its surface to suddenly move at a speed of over 1,000 mph (1,600 kph) in a sideways direction. Since the velocity needed to escape the Earth’s gravity is over 24,800 mph, we stay tacked to the surface, yet jolted forward. Also, the oceans would be thrown into chaos, sloshing sideways and swamping anything and everything in their path. The speed the Earth rotates slows down as you move from the equator and towards the poles and so standing at the North and South poles, you would hardly feel a thing!

Peace everybody!!!

I don't think they meant a sudden stop. Just if it slowly stopped spinning over time.


I think it would be similar to being at the space station. Then, that commute to work could become very interesting.

Srly? What happens when a car hits a brick wall?

You're dealing with the force of your mass operating at the speed of the earth's rotation, against the force of the mass of the earth sucking you into it (gravity).

I imagine it would be an arching trajectory, but don't think it's enough to see us out in space. Perhaps up some hundreds to a few thousand feet, but much more across. Oh, but you'd be dead, anyways. It would be a kind of incomprehensible demise. Most would be in utter shock before losing consciousness. My guess is 100ms to 10 seconds before we're all wiped out.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Does the Moon spin?

a reply to: DarknStormy

Yes, the moon has a rotational period of about 27 days. This is also about how long it takes to orbit the Earth, which is why the same side of the moon is always facing Earth.

From what I understand, gravity is not caused by the centrifugal force of Earth's rotation, but by its mass. If the Earth WAS to stop spinning, we'd have much bigger problems to worry about anyways!

Your video doesn't work. Im not sure if this is the same one, but I saw this earlier:

One side would freeze...the other side would fry.

Which side would you rather be on??

a reply to: DarknStormy

do you actually have to be told that ?

a reply to: JJRichey

If the relationship is not precise/proportionate, then the side would slowly change over times. I'm interested to see if we can notice changes from the earliest photos of the moon until now.

originally posted by: Jansy
One side would freeze...the other side would fry.

Which side would you rather be on??

If the Earth didn't spin at all, the day would the same length as a year, so all sides of the Earth would get exposed to the sun during Earth's orbit, but this would happen in a yearly cycle.

What you are suggesting is what would happen if the Earth became tidally locked with the sun like the moon is with the Earth, so the same side always faces the larger object, but rotation has to occur in that case.

originally posted by: Fylgje
I think it would be similar to being at the space station. Then, that commute to work could become very interesting.

If you were at the poles, there would be no change in your weight. The closer you are to the equator, the more your apparent weight would increase. People near the equator are actually showing a little less weight on their scales due to the Earth's rotation. If they Earth stopped rotating, they would weigh more on those scales, if they were sensitive enough to measure the small difference.

It would be nothing like being at the space station.

We would all be dead. Case closed.

Not sure if this is on topic (sorry for straying) but it was only yesterday I was wondering what would happen if the Earth stopped wobbling... Eg, Sun perminantly on the equator / no seasons