REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, Even though the Earth rotates continuously, we cannot feel it, and you may take it for granted. But what happens if you stop?
Reported Space, On Tuesday (1/16/2024), if the Earth suddenly stopped rotating, a major disaster would occur. Almost everyone and everything not on this planet will continue to move at Earth’s current rotation speed, the fastest of which is about 1,000 mph, which is along the equator.
“The momentum of all the materials that normally rotate, water, air, all the buildings and objects like that, will keep them moving,” said Andrew Layden, a professor of physics and astronomy at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, United States United (USA). ). “That’s how I am [akan] it separates from the surface and continues to spin, essentially, in a low orbit around the Earth.”
The only parts of our planet that are likely to be less affected are those near the poles, where they rotate little or not at all. However, these extreme forces would likely trigger tsunamis and earthquakes, so things would be very bad for the entire Earth.
If the Earth gradually slowed down and stopped, life would still change dramatically. For example, the length of our days and nights becomes longer until they last six months. Layden says this will also change our climate, as air and ocean currents are strongly influenced by the Earth’s rotation.
He also said it’s possible that the lack of rotation could affect the survival of life on Earth. Our planet produces a magnetic field that protects us from harmful radiation coming from space.
Scientists think that Earth’s magnetic field is related to the flow of liquid metal in our planet’s outer core, which generates electric currents and magnetic fields resulting from the Earth’s rotation. Some researchers suggest that the loss of Mars’ magnetic field in the past contributed to the planet being uninhabitable, Layden said.
Scientists say the good news is that the Earth is unlikely to stop spinning, scientists say. Every planet we know of rotates, and even stars rotate slowly.
Stars form from enormous swirling masses of gas and dust that gradually condense. Because the solar system is made up of a large disk of debris surrounding the rising sun, the material that makes up the solar system also rotates. This is why most planets in the solar system rotate in the same direction.
Planets also rotate because objects hit them, often during planet formation. Just like billiard balls, unless the objects collide directly with each other, one or both will begin to spin.
Layden revealed that getting hit is also the only way for a planet to suddenly stop rotating, or at least dramatically slow its rotation. If a very large object were to hit our planet, as happened in the collision that formed the Moon, the huge impact could counteract the Earth’s rotation or even cause the planet to rotate in the opposite direction. This is probably the case for at least one planet in our solar system.
“Venus rotates very slowly, even very slowly compared to Earth and (all) the other inner terrestrial planets,” Layden said, perhaps due to the collision.
Uranus also rotates in the opposite direction to Earth, that is, on one side. Scientists suggest that the original rotation of Uranus and Venus may have been “stopped” by one large impact, by several smaller impacts, or by the disruption of their rotation by large gravitational forces. In the case of Venus, this may be due to the sun’s gravitational pull on its dense atmosphere; for Uranus, it may have been a large moon that was eventually knocked out of its orbit.
Fortunately, our planet’s rotation is in no danger of being disrupted by massive gravitational forces, and if Earth were to collide with a planet-sized object, there would be less to worry about. However, Layden said, this scenario is unlikely in the modern solar system, because the planets’ orbits are quite regular and are unlikely to intersect with large objects.
2024-01-16 16:37:24
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