Everyone likes to go to the park as little children. Swings, see-saws, and most importantly merry-go-rounds, everyone would like to ride till their head gets dizzy. But as grownups, we often forget that even when we are sitting or lying down, our giant merry-go-round is still rotating on its axis. You might be wondering what I am referring to, it is none other than our planet earth. Without a second’s delay, she is moving on her axis and revolving around the sun. Have you ever thought about the scenario, where our earth stops its monotonous journey and decides to take a minute’s rest? What would happen to us and this planet we live on? It is exciting as well as terrifying to think of it.
Changes on the surface:
When a bus suddenly brakes, passengers would jerk towards the front due to the inertia. Similarly, when the earth abruptly stops spinning, everything that we see on the surface would collapse. The Earth would have one of its sides facing towards the sun and the rest facing away from it. Even if the earth continues to revolve around the sun, this won’t change; leaving one side of it to freeze and the other side in baking heat. The side which looks at the sun would be bright all year and the other part would experience night. This would ruin the circadian rhythm of humans if we still manage to overcome the collapse at the initial stage, People residing in any part of the planet would spend half of the year in sunlight and the other half in the night.
Change in geographical factors:
We also know that the earth is slightly tilted off its axis. This would create a twilight region between the hot and the cold portion, which will travel across the entire surface area during a round trip around the sun.
The earth has a bulge due to years of molding by the tidal forces and centripetal force. When it suddenly stops spinning, there would be a drastic change in its geography.
Merging of continents and Oceans:
Notable geologists like Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki say that the whole landmass would move towards the equatorial region and combine into a massive continent. Whereas, oceans would move quickly towards the poles and exist as two separate mega oceans. With the equatorial region dried, it acts like a boundary separating the two mega oceans.
Low-lying regions like northern plains of Asia, Europe, etc., would submerge into the ocean and only high regions stay on the surface. Even after the earth stops spinning, the atmosphere would manage to rotate for a little bit more, creating an unprecedented change in weather.
Would earth be habitable?
And above all, the main reason for life, as well as the habitable condition of the earth, is the presence of magnetic field around it. When there is such a sudden halt in motion, the direction and the strength of these fields would vary drastically, and eventually disappear; after which we won’t be protected from rocks, radiations, or from the solar wind rather we would burn down. Also, the wonderful Northern light would vanish: Van Allen belts won’t exist.
It is a fact that the rotation of the earth is slowing down every year. But don’t worry, such a catastrophic halt is unlikely to happen anywhere soon. So let’s try to be grateful for this amazing life and the wonderful universe that we are given with the right to live in.
Reference
Author
