What If The Earth Stopped Spinning - Minute By Minute — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00What if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning?  Would you notice? Absolutely. In fact,
2. 0:04depending on where you are located, you could  be thrown off your feet and sent flying across
3. 0:07the planet at approximately 1,000 miles per  hour. If you somehow survived this event,
4. 0:12what would happen next would be like walking  into a nightmare. There would be giant storms,
5. 0:16humongous waves, and flying debris. The  crazy part is the worst is yet to come.
6. 0:20We may take all of the things Earth’s  rotation does for us for granted.
7. 0:23It influences the weather, allows for 24 hour  days, and helps moderate the climate so we can
8. 0:28survive comfortably on our planet. Earth started  spinning around four and half billion years ago,
9. 0:32and it hasn’t stopped since. This is because in  the vacuum of space, there is nothing to create
10. 0:36friction that would slow down the Earth. However,  the speed at which our planet spins is decreasing.
11. 0:41So, what would happen if Earth suddenly came to a  complete stop? There would be some instantaneous
12. 0:46effects followed by a series of catastrophes  in the minutes, hours, and days to come.
13. 0:50If you were sitting on a beach near the  equator when the Earth stopped spinning, you,
14. 0:53the beach chair, and all the sand around you would  continue moving at around 1,000 miles per hour.
15. 0:58If you somehow managed to avoid being hurtled  across the planet, you would have to watch out
16. 1:02for things such as cars, animals, and anything  that wasn’t secured to Earth flying towards you.
17. 1:07You and all the other flying debris would  not get launched into space because Earth’s
18. 1:10gravity would still be pulling you towards its  center. But everything would go careening in
19. 1:14an easterly direction across the surface  until friction finally slowed it all down.
20. 1:18It may seem unbelievable, but if you were at  the North or South Pole, you would have no
21. 1:22idea that the Earth stopped spinning at first.  This is because your angular momentum at these
22. 1:26locations is zero. Think of it like spinning  a basketball on your finger. The finger at
23. 1:29the “pole” of the basketball doesn't move as  the ball spins. However, if you were to place
24. 1:33your finger anywhere else on the surface of  the ball, it would move in the direction that
25. 1:37the ball was rotating. The same thing would  happen to anyone at the poles of the Earth.
26. 1:41Let’s say that you and everything else that  went flying across the planet now came to a
27. 1:45stop. There is debris everywhere, you look  around, and by some miracle, you’ve alive.
28. 1:49Unfortunately, you won’t stay that way for  very long because the worst is yet to come.
29. 1:53Even if the Earth stopped spinning, the  atmosphere would continue to move. This
30. 1:56would cause a massive global windstorm. Like  everything else that wasn't bolted down,
31. 2:00the winds would blow at 1,000 miles per  hour. As you move away from the equator,
32. 2:04the wind speed would slow down. However, you  would need to be located pretty far north or south
33. 2:08before the winds dipped below non-lethal levels.  Most man-made and natural structures would not
34. 2:13be able to withstand winds over a few hundred  miles per hour. The strongest wind gust ever
35. 2:17recorded on our planet was just over 250 miles  per hour. And the most powerful hurricane-force
36. 2:22winds reach just over 150 miles per hour. When  you consider the destruction that can be done by
37. 2:27these storms and multiply it tenfold, you get  an idea of how dire the situation has become.
38. 2:32The winds would not only be moving  incredibly fast across the planet,
39. 2:36but they would do something strange over time.
40. 2:38Once the winds calmed down, regular weather  patterns would change drastically. The spinning
41. 2:42of the Earth creates the Coriolis effect, which  causes air currents to move across the planet.
42. 2:47It is the movement of air and the friction that  is caused as it passes over the surface of the
43. 2:51Earth that causes certain weather patterns such  as hurricanes. Therefore, a non-spinning Earth
44. 2:55would not have any more hurricanes, so at least  we have that going for us. But there are other
45. 3:00phenomena that will make trying to survive on  this new motionless world incredibly difficult.
46. 3:04For one thing, the oceans and all of the water on  the planet are about to move to a new location.
47. 3:09When the Earth stops spinning,  the water, like everything else,
48. 3:11will keep moving. This will cause enormous  tsunamis and gigantic waves to sweep across
49. 3:16every continent and briefly turn our planet  into a water world. It would be like a more
50. 3:20intense version of the Noah’s Ark story, but even  a ship large enough to carry two of every animal
51. 3:24on the planet wouldn’t survive the waves,  which could reach hundreds of feet high.
52. 3:28And if you thought one-hundred-foot tidal  waves were bad, that is nothing compared
53. 3:32to other natural disasters that would be  caused by a sudden stop to Earth's spin.
54. 3:35The tectonic plates sit on top of the Earth's  mantle and slowly move across the viscous molten
55. 3:40rock. This is what causes geologic formations  such as mountains and valleys. However,
56. 3:44if the plates keep moving at their previous  speeds after the Earth stops spinning,
57. 3:48it could cause earthquakes and volcanoes on  a scale of which has never been seen before.
58. 3:52As tectonic plates slam into each other huge  tremors will ripple across the landscape
59. 3:56tearing apart the Earth's crust.  Denser oceanic plates will be forced
60. 4:00under less dense continental plates causing  massive volcanic eruptions that would spew
61. 4:04molten lava across the planet and cover the  atmosphere in smoke and dust particles. The
62. 4:08resulting scars and craters in the Earth's  landscape would be reminiscent of something
63. 4:11out of Dante's Inferno. And yet there  is still more devastation to come.
64. 4:15We are now hours into the after-effects of an  Earth that suddenly stopped spinning. The waves
65. 4:20have subsided, the winds have calmed, and the  Earth has reached a sort of new equilibrium,
66. 4:24but now the really strange  stuff is about to happen.
67. 4:26At this point, pretty much every living  thing on the planet has been wiped out
68. 4:30except for some species that live at the poles,  like penguins and intrepid scientists stationed
69. 4:34in the arctic. Unfortunately, at least one  of these creatures won’t last for very long.
70. 4:38Every weather pattern on Earth will  have shifted. Winds are blowing up
71. 4:41from the equator to the poles.  This directly impacts rainfall,
72. 4:44causing rainforests to go arid and deserts to  flood. Surprisingly some of the most hospitable
73. 4:49places on Earth after it stops spinning would  be in the frozen tundras of Canada and Siberia.
74. 4:54Right now, these locations are difficult  to live in as the temperatures are brutal
75. 4:57and precipitation can be low. However,  with the changing of weather patterns,
76. 5:00these areas could begin to thaw and become  much more temperate. That being said, in the
77. 5:04coming days, another problem will arise around  the world that would render this a moot point.
78. 5:09As the Earth spins, it creates centrifugal  force, which pulls the water of our oceans
79. 5:13towards the equator. Due to this phenomenon,  the sea level at the equator is actually
80. 5:17about 13 miles higher than the sea level at  the poles. When the Earth stops spinning,
81. 5:21the centrifugal force that causes the  oceans to bulge at the equator is gone.
82. 5:25This means that the water of the oceans  will begin to move towards the poles.
83. 5:28The ocean levels at the equator would drop by  about 5 miles as the water rushes to either
84. 5:32pole. This would increase the amount  of water in the arctic and antarctic,
85. 5:36submerging any remaining land under salty water.
86. 5:38These new oceans would extend from the poles  down to around the longitude of where Spain
87. 5:43is located in the Northern Hemisphere and  to the tip of Argentina in the Southern
88. 5:46Hemisphere. But due to the drastic drop in sea  level near the equator, there would now be a
89. 5:50giant supercontinent that circled the Earth's  equatorial region separating the two new polar
90. 5:55oceans from one another. The new continent would  be a barren stretch of land containing very little
91. 5:59in the way of plants or animals as it had been  underwater for hundreds of millions of years.
92. 6:03Life would slowly begin to recolonize this  newly formed continent in a normal situation.
93. 6:08But since most living things were likely wiped  out in the initial displacement of air and water,
94. 6:12this process would take much longer.  However, life always seems to find a way,
95. 6:16so microbes would probably inhabit the new  continent first, followed by pioneering species
96. 6:20such as fungi and lichens. Unfortunately,  even the most resilient species would have a
97. 6:25hard time surviving on a non-spinning Earth  due to the change in the length of a day.
98. 6:29The spinning of Earth on its axis is what  causes day and night. Once the spinning stops,
99. 6:33there will still be day and night; it will just  take much longer to change between the two.
100. 6:37Just because the Earth stopped spinning doesn’t  mean it stops revolving around the sun. The length
101. 6:41of a year, or the time it takes the Earth to  complete one revolution in its orbit, would remain
102. 6:45the same. This means that as the Earth continued  to orbit the sun, one day on Earth would take a
103. 6:49year. Wherever you were located on the planet  would get six months of light and six months
104. 6:53of darkness. With these extreme circumstances,  some really terrible things begin to happen.
105. 6:57The most noticeable difference would be the  changes in temperature across the planet.
106. 7:01Since any given point on the Earth would receive  six months of sunlight, it would experience six
107. 7:05months of intense heat. The first days of having  nonstop sunlight wouldn’t be too bad. It might be
108. 7:10hard to fall asleep, but the temperature wouldn’t  be that drastically different. However, as the
109. 7:14weeks passed and the area never got a chance to  cool down, temperatures would slowly begin to
110. 7:18creep up. It is estimated that 6 months of nonstop  sunlight would likely cause the temperature on the
111. 7:22daytime side of the Earth to reach over 212  degrees fahrenheit or 100 degrees celsius.
112. 7:27This is hot enough to boil water and  melt anything else on the surface of
113. 7:31the planet. The water would evaporate  into the air and eventually find its
114. 7:34way to cooler regions in the twilight  zone and night side of the planet.
115. 7:38The daytime side of Earth would become a  scorched landscape in a matter of months.
116. 7:42On the opposite side of the planet, where it  is perpetually nighttime for six months, the
117. 7:45temperatures would plummet. If you found yourself  stuck here, you would notice something strange
118. 7:49during your 6 months in darkness. The night sky  would never change. We are used to seeing the
119. 7:53stars, Moon, and other celestial bodies move  across the night sky, but this is an illusion.
120. 7:58Although everything in the sky is moving, the only  reason that constellations seem to rise and set
121. 8:02is because of the spin of the Earth. If the Earth  stopped turning, this would no longer be the case,
122. 8:07and you would see the same stars in  relatively the same position all the time.
123. 8:11That being said, there would be 7 celestial  objects that still moved across the sky.
124. 8:15These would be the other planets in the solar  system. However, due to the long orbits of the
125. 8:19outer planets like Neptune and Uranus, there is  a chance that they would not cross your portion
126. 8:22of the night sky during your lifetime.  You would likely be able to see Mercury,
127. 8:26Venus, and Mars, though, which might break  up some of the monotony of a year-long day.
128. 8:30Surprisingly there are a few ways that life might  get around the temperature problems with an Earth
129. 8:34day lasting one full year. On both the day and  night sides of the planet, microbes would likely
130. 8:38be able to survive since they are pretty hardy.  However, most plants and animals would die off in
131. 8:42massive numbers if any survived the initial  catastrophes when Earth stopped spinning.
132. 8:47Although, when you think about it, there  are already certain organisms that survive
133. 8:50in locations where six months of the year  are in darkness and the other six months
134. 8:53the sun never sets. In the South Pole, penguins  live in these conditions every year. Granted,
135. 8:58if the Earth wasn’t spinning, their habitat  would likely be underwater, but theoretically,
136. 9:02penguins might be the best-suited animals  to survive on a non-spinning Earth.
137. 9:05There may also be creatures deep in the ocean  near hydrothermal vents called extremophiles
138. 9:09that could survive on Earth if it stopped  spinning. The creatures in these ecosystems
139. 9:13don’t require sunlight as they create  their own food not using photosynthesis
140. 9:17but a process called chemosynthesis. They do  this by taking the heat and minerals being
141. 9:21pumped out of the Earth and into the  oceans and repurposing them into food.
142. 9:24In order for these extremophiles to continue  living, the Earth's core and tectonic plates
143. 9:28need to remain active. If these processes  stopped along with the spinning of the Earth,
144. 9:32then everything that relied on the organisms  around hydrothermal vents would die off too.
145. 9:36For any humans that find themselves still  living on the Earth after it stops spinning,
146. 9:40there might be a way to survive  the year-long day. However,
147. 9:42we would have to go back to our  roots and become nomadic once again.
148. 9:45During the time it would take the Earth  to complete its orbit around the sun,
149. 9:48there would always be a section  of the planet that would be in a
150. 9:50twilight zone. The sun would either  be just about to rise or just about
151. 9:54to set in these regions. This would make  their temperatures relatively moderate.
152. 9:57In this scenario, anyone who survived the stopping  of Earth may be able to make their way onto the
153. 10:01equatorial supercontinent and use it as a base  of operations. If you could somehow band together
154. 10:06with any other humans who survived and start  a nomadic tribe, you could follow the twilight
155. 10:11zone around the Earth every year. Obviously, you  would need to figure out ways to grow plants in
156. 10:15low light for food and find drinkable water. But  if those obstacles could be overcome, you could
157. 10:19travel your way around the planet each year to  keep out of the high and low temperature zones.
158. 10:23We know there are many more obstacles that  would need to be addressed in order for your
159. 10:26new twilight community to succeed.  But it is kind of interesting that
160. 10:29going back to our nomadic lifestyle might be  the thing that could save the human species
161. 10:33if the world stopped spinning. The number of problems that need to
162. 10:35be overcome seems almost insurmountable  when you look at it practically.
163. 10:39All life on Earth today evolved to  live on a planet with a day lasting
164. 10:42roughly around 24 hours. The  length of a day is so important
165. 10:46that it has become ingrained in our  biology. If the Earth stopped spinning,
166. 10:49it would throw the circadian rhythms of living  things into chaos. This process is fine-tuned
167. 10:53to allow our bodies to go through physical,  mental, and chemical cycles every 24 hours.
168. 10:58If your circadian rhythm gets thrown off, it can  lead to depression, irregular hormone release,
169. 11:02and even a change in body temperature. And  this is not just unique to humans. Many living
170. 11:06things on the planet rely on circadian  rhythms to time biological functions.
171. 11:10Life evolved over hundreds of millions  of years to survive during a 24 hour day.
172. 11:14It would not be able to adjust  to a year-long day very easily.
173. 11:17All of the problems so far would occur if the  surface of the Earth stopped spinning. However,
174. 11:21if the entirety of the Earth, including  the core, were to become stationary,
175. 11:25what would happen? Things would  actually become a whole lot worse.
176. 11:28The core of the Earth is likely made of molten  iron and nickel. This is incredibly important
177. 11:32because as these two elements swirl around  the core as a result of the intense heat
178. 11:36and pressure at the center of our planet, they  create a magnetic field around the Earth. This
179. 11:40magnetic field protects our atmosphere from being  obliterated by harmful radiation and solar storms.
180. 11:45If the core of the Earth stopped spinning along  with the rest of the planet, our magnetic field
181. 11:50would shut down. This likely wouldn’t cause  any immediate catastrophes, but after a while,
182. 11:54the planet would slowly begin to bake from the  extra radiation bombarding it from the sun.
183. 11:58Living things would get radiation burns,  and the DNA in their cells would begin to
184. 12:02mutate. However, this would only be  a problem until the sun belched out
185. 12:05a solar flare or coronal mass ejection in  our direction. Without our magnetic field,
186. 12:09these cosmic events would completely annihilate  anything on the surface of the planet.
187. 12:13This brings us to the big question. Is it possible
188. 12:16for the world to just stop  spinning? The answer is yes.
189. 12:19There are two different ways the Earth could  stop spinning. The first would be if the motion
190. 12:23stopped all at once and the second would be  if it gradually slowed down over time. We are
191. 12:27going to look at both scenarios. An abrupt stop  would be much more devastating than a gradual one,
192. 12:31but a gradual stop is more likely as our  planet's spin is already slowing down.
193. 12:35If the Earth was hit by  another planet-size object,
194. 12:37it could theoretically stop the rotation  of our planet. If this happened, then all
195. 12:41of the things discussed in this video  could be disregarded. An impact of that
196. 12:44magnitude would vaporize anything on the  surface of both planets, which makes 1,000
197. 12:49mile per hour winds and year-long days pretty  insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
198. 12:53Surprisingly, a planet in our solar system went  through just such an impact. Uranus does not
199. 12:57spin the same way as the rest of the planets in  our solar system. It spins at a 90-degree angle
200. 13:02from the plane of its orbit. All other planets  spin close to 180 degrees along their orbit.
201. 13:06Many scientists believe the reason that Uranus’  spin is different from the rest of the planets
202. 13:10is that an Earth-sized object hit it in  the past. So, it is not out of the realm
203. 13:15of possibility that Earth could be hit  by something that would disrupt its spin.
204. 13:18There is another planet that has an  even more peculiar spin than Uranus,
205. 13:22and it happens to be our neighbor. Venus is  a lot like Earth. It is about the same size,
206. 13:26and it sits just on the inner part of our  solar system's habitable zone. However,
207. 13:30due to its runaway greenhouse effect,  Venus is more like hell than Earth.
208. 13:34But what makes this planet peculiar is that it  rotates in the opposite direction compared to all
209. 13:38the other planets in the solar system. On Venus,  the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
210. 13:42Scientists think this may have been  caused by an impact. Recent evidence
211. 13:45suggests that Venus used to rotate in the  same direction as all the other planets,
212. 13:49but the sun's gravitational pull slowed down  its spin and eventually caused it to stop.
213. 13:53That same gravitational pull continued to  tug on Venus resulting in it spinning in the
214. 13:57opposite direction. This would never happen to  the Earth as we are too far away from the sun,
215. 14:01but perhaps something else could  cause this to happen to our planet.
216. 14:04There may be some unknown force that we have  yet to discover which could cause the Earth
217. 14:08to stop spinning. Perhaps if our solar system  passed by a black hole at just the right angle,
218. 14:12the gravitational pull from the black hole could  cause our planet to stop spinning. However, a more
219. 14:16likely scenario would be that the black hole would  consume our solar system or throw it into chaos.
220. 14:21Right now, the Earth is spinning slower than  it was a year ago. In fact, the Earth’s spin
221. 14:25slows down around 1.4 milliseconds every 100  years. This is a very small number and will
222. 14:30have no impact on your life, but for people  in the future, this could be a huge problem.
223. 14:34The reason that the Earth’s spin is  slowing down is not a mystery. There
224. 14:38isn’t some unknown planet or force tugging  on the Earth stalling its rotation. Instead,
225. 14:42the reason why it slows down ever so slightly  each year is because of the Moon’s gravity.
226. 14:46You can see the pull of the Moon at work twice  a day if you are by a large body of water.
227. 14:49The Moon tugs at the water, which creates  the tides. This is a natural process
228. 14:53and one that many scientists believe is  necessary for many aquatic creatures to survive.
229. 14:58However, with all of that pulling comes the  side effect of losing momentum. Every time
230. 15:02the Moon pulls on Earth, it slows its spin ever so  slightly. In fact, the Earth had the same effect
231. 15:07on the Moon for a long time until it became  tidally locked, which was caused by Earth’s
232. 15:11gravity stopping the spin of the Moon completely.  This is why we only see one side of the Moon.
233. 15:16Since the Moon is smaller than our planet,  it has less gravity and therefore didn’t
234. 15:20tidally lock the Earth. This is a good  thing; otherwise, our day would last a year,
235. 15:23and the world would look very  different than it does today.
236. 15:26But the fact remains, the Moon is slowing the  spin of Earth ever so slightly all the time.
237. 15:30To put this in perspective, let’s go back  in time. Four hundred million years ago,
238. 15:34the length of an Earth day was shorter than it is  today because the planet was spinning faster. It
239. 15:39may sound crazy, but there were actually  400 days in a year. This means every day
240. 15:42was 21.9 hours long. If you thought there wasn’t  enough time in a day to get everything done now,
241. 15:47you would have been really pressed  for time 400 million years ago.
242. 15:50So, what is going to happen in the  future to the length of a day for
243. 15:53Earth? We know that one day now  is about 23 hours and 56 minutes,
244. 15:57not 24 hours. This is why we add an extra day  every four years to make sure that our calendar
245. 16:01stays in sync. At the rate at which the Earth  is slowing down due to the pull of the moon,
246. 16:05in 140 million years, a day will be 25 hours long.  Obviously, you and I won’t be around to witness a
247. 16:1125 hour day, but given enough time, the Earth  could stop spinning altogether. At that point,
248. 16:16one day would be equivalent to one full rotation  of the Earth around the sun, or 8,760 hours long.
249. 16:23But even future generations don’t need to worry
250. 16:25about this happening. The Earth will be  destroyed long before it stops spinning.
251. 16:28We are not talking about doomsday or humans  blowing up the planet. Instead, we are referring
252. 16:32to the time it will take for our sun to turn  into a red giant and consume the Earth. This will
253. 16:36happen in about 5 billion years when the sun fuses  all of the hydrogen atoms at its core and needs to
254. 16:42start pulling in hydrogen from its outer layers.  At this point, the sun will begin to expand.
255. 16:46There is a chance that the sun doesn’t swell  to the size of Earth’s orbit. But our planet
256. 16:50would be so close to the red giant that  the radiation and heat would be too much
257. 16:53for our magnetic shield, and the world  would burn. At this point, the Earth
258. 16:57would be tidally locked with the  sun and would no longer be spinning.
259. 17:00Now watch “What If World War 1 Never Happened?” Or
260. 17:02check out “What if Richter  10 Scale Earthquake Hit?”