I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of what might happen if the Earth stopped rotating out of nowhere. Tech Insider, a company which is "a digital publication covering tech, science, innovation, and culture," whose mission is to "go deep into these fields and tell the stories that matter to everyone, using text, video, photo, and audio," made an amazing video depicting exactly what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating.
The Earth spins at over 1,000 miles per hour at the Equator. If the Earth stopped rotating here's what would happen:
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Anything that wasn't attached to the Earth's bedrock would go flying Eastward at a speed of more than 1,000 miles per hour. That means all the trees, buildings, humans, and pets alike would get spun into a wind so strong it would mimic the effect of an atomic blast.
In under a minute, giant tsunamis could sweep over seventeen miles of land due to the momentum.
One Earth day will take 365 standard days to finish. Instead of there would be six months of sunlight with high temperatures, followed by six months of darkness with very low temperatures.
Watching the beautiful colors on the horizon from the sunsets and the sunrises would become a thing of the past. The sun would rise from the west and set in the east only once a year. Moreover, the sun would only move its seasonal motions up and down the sky towards the south because of Earth's orbit and axial tilt.
The Earth would get divided into one large continent in the middle and two large bodies of water surrounding each the top and bottom of the land. When the Earth spins, it creates a centrifugal force that causes a bulge at the equator. If the Earth stops rotating, the bulge would flatten out and the oceans would migrate to the poles where the gravity is the strongest.
In addition to that, the magnetic field would slowly fade, exposing the Earth to deadly cosmic rays. The Earth's magnetic field is generated by a dynamo effect that involves it's rotation. If the the Earth stopped rotating, it's magnetic field would decay. This would also mean the end of the Northern Lights.
The moral of the video is this: if the Earth's rotation ends, life for humans ends as well. It's remarkable how something as seemingly small as the Earth's rotation can create so many changes!
