00:00Imagine if you were suddenly thrown sideways at a thousand miles per hour without even
00:04moving a muscle.
00:05This sounds like a scene from a disaster movie, but it is exactly what would happen if the
00:09Earth decide to take an unscheduled break from spinning.
00:11Right now you feel like you are sitting perfectly still, but the ground beneath you is actually
00:15whipping you around the center of the planet faster than a passenger jet.
00:19So how fast is the Earth actually spinning?
00:21If you are standing at the equator, you are moving at about 1038 miles per hour.
00:26As you move toward the north or south poles, that speed slows down until it reaches zero
00:30at the very top and bottom of the Earth.
00:32Since everything around you, the air, the ocean, and the building, is moving at that same speed
00:36constant, your body does not feel a thing.
00:38What exactly would happen the very second the Earth stops spinning?
00:42Because of something called energia, which is the tendency for objects in motion to stay
00:46in motion, you and everything else not bolted to the pet rock, would keep flying eastward
00:50at over 1,000 miles per hour.
00:52This would mean trees, houses, and even the topsoil would be stripped away from the surface
00:56in an instant.
00:57Even the atmosphere would keep moving, creating supersonic wind that would score the planet
01:01green.
01:02Would the ocean just stay where they are?
01:03No, the water in the ocean has energy too, so it would surge eastward in massive ways,
01:08far more destructive than any tsunami would have ever recorded.
01:11Eventually, without the centrifugal force from the spinning that makes the Earth bulge at
01:15the middle, all that water would migrate toward the poles.
01:17This would flood huge areas of land near the north and south poles, and leave a giant belt
01:22of dry land around the equator.
01:24What would happen to gravity if the spin stopped?
01:26Surprisingly, you would actually feel a little bit heavier, especially if you were standing
01:30at the equator.
01:31Currently, the Earth's outward spin push cancels out about 0.3% of gravity's pull, so without
01:36that extra push, you would weigh about 3% more.
01:38Does this mean the day and night cycle would just disappear?
01:41It would not disappear, but it would change dramatically because the Earth would still be revolving around
01:45the sun once a year.
01:47Instead of a 24-hour day, a single day would last an entire year.
01:50You would have 6 months of continuous snorching daylight on one side of the planet and 6 months
01:55of freezing total darkness on the other.
01:57This would make most of the Earth completely uninhabitable, except for a narrow band of
02:01land between the hot and cold sides.
02:03What about our protection from space radiation?
02:05Our magnetic field is generated by the sterling liquid metal in the Earth's core, which depends
02:09entirely on the planet's rotation.
02:11Without a spin, the magnetic field would likely decay and fade away, leaving us vulnerable
02:15to the sun's harmful solar winds and cosmic rays.
02:18This is actually what scientists believe happened to Mars billions of years ago.
02:22Could a sudden stop cause earthquakes or volcanoes?
02:24Absolutely, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere.
02:27It is slightly scratched because of its rotation.
02:29If it stopped, gravity would try to pull the planet back into a perfect ball shape, which
02:33would trigger massive global earthquakes and unorganized volcanic eruptions.
02:36Is there any force in the universe that could actually stop the Earth like this?
02:40Thankfully, the answer is no.
02:41The Earth has so much energy locked up in its rotation, that it would take a collision
02:45beat another planet-sized object to stop it and our solar system is very stable right
02:50now.
02:50While the moon is slowly pulling on our oceans and slowing our spin by about 1.7 milliseconds
02:55every century, it would take billions of years to come to a complete halt.
02:58So, while the idea of a motionless Earth is a fascinating science experiment, you can rest
03:03easy now and the planet will keep spinning.
03:19The planet will keep spinning.
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