if you are like me spinning around in a circle for just a few seconds is enough to render you uncomfortably dizzy now imagine if you had to spend every second of every day spinning at a rate of 460 meters per second, or roughly 1000 miles per hour well provided you're standing near the equator you kind of already do.
the earth makes one full rotation every 23 hours and 56 minutes and it's circumference is roughly 40,000 75 kilometers which gives the surface of our home planet a rotational speed of 460 meters per second around the equator, besides giving us what we know as our day and night cycle the planets rotation has profound effect on the conditions of Earth what would happen if that rotation suddenly stopped?
if we assume that some unknown force stopped the earth instantly the immediate effect would be disastrous the effect would be similar to what you'd experience if you hit an immovable barrier on the highway while not wearing a seat belt
except instead of traveling at 70 miles an hour you'd be going a thousand miles an hour, the earth itself would stop spinning but the atmosphere liquids and most objects around the world would be launched sideways at 460 meters per second buildings would be leveled by winds exceeding the speed of atomic blast shockwaves humans animals and cars would become billions of individual ballistic missiles the momentum and sudden lack of gravity near the equator would create enormous kilometers high tsunamis
That could sweep across land masses in a matter of minutes as the world's oceans rush towards the poles.
any area is lucky enough to survive the destructive winds and massive tsunamis would likely be stripped bare by more gradual erosion from continued winds destroying animal habitats homes and farmland the world would suffer from massive droughts and with most or all of the water gone or far away there would be no way to support life for an extended period of time the immediate aftermath of this planetary braking is severe and would likely put every species on earth including humans on the critically endangered list if not extinct altogether but what about the long-term effect of an on spinning earth there would be many less destructive effects to the change and some serious ones that might not be obvious at first.
for example days would last much much longer right now it takes the earth about 24 hours been on its axis marking one full day if the planet stopped spinning gradually say over the course of several billion years it would eventually reach a point where it would be considered Sun synchronous meaning one rotation of the earth would take 365 days similar to tidal locking this state would cause every spot on earth to exist in permanent day or permanent night the oceans would boil or evaporate entirely on the day side of the planet and freeze on the night side making life exceptionally difficult if not impossible except in the slim Twilight regions between the day and night sides if instead the earth reached a point where it had stopped spinning entirely, you would experience half a year of sunlight and half a year of darkness which might allow for slightly more livable conditions but would likely ruin agriculture and plant growth cycles as there would be no real transition between seasons one very gradual change would be the planets change from its current globe shape to a more perfect
sphere right now due to the Earth's rotation there is a slight bulge around the equator making the earth more of a deflated ball than a sphere because of this bulge the area around the equator holds more of the world's ocean water as the earth shifted towards a more spherical shape this water would flood surrounding areas as it migrates towards the poles where gravity is the strongest this would create two enormous polar oceans and leave one giant continent that would wrap around the equator if
you lived in this polar ocean world you could walk around the entire earth without ever having to cross a body of
water another gradual but more lethal change would be the slow dissipation of the Earth's magnetic field when the planet spins molten metal from the core Rises cools and sinks back down creating convection currents and generating magnetic energy if the earth stopped pinning this process would grind to a halt and the planet's magnetic field would fade away leaving the surface to be bombarded with cosmic radiation and lethal rays from the Sun years of constant baking from radiation would render the earth rocky and lifeless much like our sister planet Mars which once had a magnetosphere of its own when Mars lost its magnetic field the Sun slowly stripped away the planet's atmosphere scorching the surface and leaving the barren Red
Planet we know today.
so the Earth's rotation is really the only thing standing between us and planet-wide disaster luckily there's not really any chance of that spin suddenly coming to a halt sure the planet will slowly stop spinning but it'll be over the course of billions of years and humanity will most likely be extinct or long gone by then and as far as we know there's nothing that could stop the earth's rotation immediately with the exception of maybe another planet colliding with ours but in that case we'd be dead either way.
Thanks for reading! Please Upvote,Follow,Resteem