Do you know that the earth is rotating about its axis? Well, everybody knows, but we don’t tend to care these small things in our daily hustle. But have you ever wondered what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating even for just 5 seconds? How much devastation would it cause? And would it be habitable again after it starts spinning again? Let’s find out.
 |
| Image Source: Live Science |
“That would be disastrous. If you stopped Earth and you weren’t seatbelt buckled to the Earth you would fall over and roll 800 miles an hour due East. It would kill everyone on Earth. People would be flying out of windows and that would be just a bad day on Earth.”- said Astrophysicist Neil Grasse Tyson in a TV interview in 2019.
The earth makes one full rotation on it axis in one day. It is rotating with a speed of about 460 m/s which is about 1600 km/h. This happens because Sun attracts the earth towards it and the earth revolve around the Sun, tending to go away from Sun in the direction of the tangent thus creating a rotational force or torque.
 |
| Image Source: LinkedIn |
Now getting back to the question – even if this huge planet
comes to a sudden halt the
atmosphere would still be in motion. That means the wind would still be there.
And they would be stronger than you have ever experienced. The wind would be
the strongest near the equator with a speed of about 1670 km/h. And as you can
imagine these would be strong enough to make you fly. Even it would tear up the
earth crust. So a strongly built building cannot even save you.
As a matter
of fact, the strongest tornadoes have speed about 510 km/h, which set the
houses and buildings off their bases. So it would not be difficult for you to
think the level of destruction it would create.
Image Source: Facebook
But would
you even set off into the space? Well, no. Because the escape velocity or the
speed needed to escape the Earth’s gravity is 40000 km/h which is way more than
the wind speed.
Image Source: Life Hack Solution
The story
doesn’t end here. As you know our Earth is not a perfect sphere – bulges near
the equator due to the centrifugal force due to its revolution. But if it stops
spinning, it would immediately turn into a perfect sphere. As a result the
water of the ocean around the equator would flow towards the poles, thus
causing a massive destructive tsunami. This water would flow all the way
slamming and smashing everything.
Image Source: Quora
Billions of
people around the globe would die if this happened somehow. The only place
where you have a little more chance to survive these 5 seconds is near the
poles. But do not take it lightly, as the wind would be stronger enough to
knock you down and even some buildings.
So make
sure your house has an underground bunker to survive this sudden halt.
Well, no
need to get in a hurry.
Luckily
scientists have claimed that there is not going to be any kind of halt or pause
in earth’s spinning in the next few billion years.
Post a Comment