What if the Earth stopped orbiting around the sun?

Question

But kept rotating on its axis? Would the Earth plummet toward the sun? That is, does the sun create a pull of the heavenly bodies towards itself and it's the orbits of those planets that keep them from being pulled in? Also, does the sun have an axis that it rotates around?

Answer 1

If the Earth suddenly stopped orbiting the sun, the kinetic energy of its orbital motion would be transferred as heat to the planet. At the very least, the intense heat would boil the atmosphere and oceans into space and reduce the entire planet to a charred cinder. The remains would fall into the sun.

Yes, it is the orbital motions of the planets that keep them from falling into the sun OR flying away OR having orbits that are drastically different from the ones they now have. The speed has to be just right to prevent those things from happening.

Yes, the sun does rotate on its own axis; but the rotational period varies with latitude, because the sun is not a solid object. Parts of it rotate faster than others:

"The sun's roational period is about 25 days at the equator,
27 days at 35 degrees latitude,
33 days at 75 degrees latitude, and about 35 days near the poles."

Answer 2

The answers are:
if the earth stopped rotating around the sun it would be pulled by gravity to the sun, since rotation around the sun causes a centrifugal force that balances the force of gravity.
The sun does have an axis and rotates around it.

Answer 3

Yes. The movement of the Earth around the sun is product of two combined forces. One, directed toward the sun, the gravitational force, and the original movement of the Earth in a direction of 90 degrees. Imagine a rectangle with only length and width. Length is one force, width is the other one. The resultant diagonal is the one that keeps the Earth moving, and prevent her of plummeting towards the sun. I hope it is clear enough. I cannot make drawings or sketches here.

Answer 4

Well, yes, that's all correct. I can't imagine how the stopping part would go, but it is our motion perpendicular to the sun's gravitational pull that keeps us from falling in immediately. You could say that we are always falling in towards the sun, but our sideways motion moves us away at approximately the same rate. The sun rotates, yes. Look it all up at wikipedia.com. I'm sure they give an excellent treatment of it there.

Answer 5

If the Earth stopped rotating around the Sun, it would also probably stop rotating on it's axis and wobble into outer space fnally hitting something and be destroyed. Without the rotation around the Sun, there are no seasons
and were are all dead.

Answer 6

The centrifugal force generated by Earth's (nearly) circular orbital motion counteracts the Sun's gravity. Without its orbital motion, our planet would fall into the Sun.

And yes, the Sun does spin on its axis; you can see sunspots travel across the solar disk.

Answer 7

Every year we get a free trip around the sun, if planet earth, STOPPED, orbiting the sun, BUT, kept on spinning,

1. IT would get very cold, very quickly, or we would all burn

and/or

2. We would hit the sun , or

3. We would go merrily spinning into space, getting colder everyday, where we would eventually hit something else and the planet would be destroyed. (But we're all dead by then anyway.)

Either way we're all dead.

The sun will just keep on spinning.

Answer 8

I guess the Sun would go back to orbiting the Earth!

Answer 9

earth is under constant pull of gravitation due to sun....this is cause of it's uniform motion around sun.
anywayz if ever earth stops orbitting u'll have same season all round and livin things will be ultimately in danger........

Answer 10

All I know is I hope it doesn't stop like on a dime and I don't have anything to hold onto....I hate rugburns!