Earth, like most planets out in the cosmos, famously spins on an axis, but what if it didn’t? What if one day, instead of twirling at 1,040 Miles per hour it just suddenly stopped, coming to a halt all at once?
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 (soft music)
00:02 Earth, like most planets out in the cosmos,
00:06 famously spins on an axis.
00:08 But what if it didn't?
00:09 What if one day, instead of twirling at 1,040 miles per hour
00:12 it just suddenly stopped, coming to a halt all at once?
00:16 Well, geoscientists tell Business Insider
00:18 the first thing that would happen
00:19 is that you and literally anything
00:21 that isn't bolted to the ground
00:23 would go flying eastward at around 1,000 miles per hour.
00:26 That's because of inertia, or Newton's law
00:28 that outlines how things in motion tend to stay in motion.
00:31 And since we are all currently moving with the Earth
00:33 at 1,040 miles per hour,
00:35 we would remain moving at that speed,
00:36 even if our planet suddenly stopped doing the same.
00:39 That jarring event would likely kill
00:41 every living creature on the planet.
00:43 But if something did survive that,
00:45 they likely wouldn't survive what happens next.
00:47 Geoscientist Joseph Levy of Colgate University says,
00:50 "Water, too, would feel this sudden acceleration,"
00:53 meaning giant waves of water ripped from the ocean
00:55 would also be moving over land at intense speeds,
00:58 knocking over any buildings or trees
01:00 that happened to survive the initial catastrophic event.
01:03 So would anywhere be safe?
01:04 According to Levy, the safest places
01:06 would be near the planet's poles,
01:08 where its rotational speed is much slower.
01:10 Luckily, that's unlikely to happen.
01:12 An Earth-slowing spin due to tidal breaking from the moon
01:14 isn't expected to happen for billions of years.
01:18 (upbeat music)
01:20 (upbeat music)