What If The Earth Stopped Moving?

Question

I have never really thought abou this question until today. What would happen if the earth stopped moving or revolving around the sun?

Answer 1

If the Earth was stopped relative to the sun, it wouldn't stay still for long.

It would accelerate and fall directly into the sun in a few days

Answer 2

It would stop for a very brief time, after which it would start falling towards the sun.

Earth's movement around the sun is a combination of two vectors. First is its forward motion, which if there were no gravity would cause us to leave the vicinity of the sun. Draw a circle with a dot on it, then draw a "radius" vector from the center to the dot. Now draw a straight line at right angles to the radius vector starting from that dot. That is the direction the Earth would go without gravity.

Second is the gravitationally induced motion of falling towards the sun. Draw a second radius vector to another dot on that circle. The distance between the straight line and the circle at that point is representative of the attraction of gravity. You could draw a vector from the tangential line to the radius vector as a representative of the exact magnitude of gravity needed to keep the orbit going.

To have an orbit, the two motions are in equilibrium. They balance.

Well, if you stopped the forward motion of the Earth, all that would be left would be gravity. Which would make things VERY hot indeed.

Answer 3

The others have pretty much answered your question. Earth cannot just "stop". The Earth not only moves around the Sun, but it moves WITH the Sun around the center of the galaxy. It also moves WITH the galaxy, currently heading toward the Andromeda galaxy for a fun collision in about three billion years. So "stopping" the earth means that the Sun and the solar system would move away from us, just as the galaxy would also move away from us (taking millions of years for Earth to actually be clear of the galaxy).

The problem is, everything in the universe moves in relation to everything else and there is no "frame of reference" that is "fixed". When you drive a car down the street, the street itself, the houses, and the parked cars all "stay where they are". They are the reference frame by which you can judge your speed and location. They are "fixed" (from our perspective...since they are part of the earth, they are rotating around the Earth's axis, revolving around the sun, revolving around the galactic core, moving toward Andromeda, and even moving "with" Andromeda and the other "local group" galaxies which move as a large single "unit" in space.

Asking hypothetical questions is the mark of a budding scientist. By asking the "what if's", we are forced to think about our world and the things in it in realistic ways. These questions frequently lead to other seemingly unrelated questions whose answers lead to more questions. Sometimes, the answers are important, other times the answers are merely curiousities or text on the page of a dusty book.

My daughter did a science fair project once, asking the question "what would life be like if the Earth was a cube?" She asked me to put together a wooden cube, about a foot on each edge. She printed out a map of the world, distorted to fit a cube. Once the cube was assembled, we began to see that each "corner" of the cubical Earth, was actually a 1500 mile high "mountain." Each of the six faces of the would have had a central "ocean". The ocean would not have been "flat" as our oceans appear to be, but would actually have been formed by gravity into a "mountain" of water. The atmosphere would also be pulled by gravity into a "bubble" over the central ocean and some of the surrounding land. Too far from the ocean, the air would thin. The corner "mountains" would be sticking up into space and would have a hard vacuum surrounding them. Only at the middle of each face's ocean would you actually stand perpendicular to the face of the Earth. On the land surrounding the oceans, you would have to lean with your head tilted away from the center of your "face" of the Earth. Life could have formed on none or on one or all of the six faces, depending upon the cubical Earth's orientation to the Sun, the location of the axis of rotation. Had intelligent life evolved, it would have been unaware of any intelligent life on the other five faces until two or more faces developed radio. Traveling from one face to another would be impossible until the intelligent life learned to travel across thousands of miles of vacuum. There was much more, but asking a question about something that cannot be makes you think about why things are the way they are.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

Well, today was a bad day for you, if you just thought about this "today." I would go home right away and gather up all of my most precious toys, games, videos, clothes, and shoes. Then I would touch and fondle each one of them for a long time because this is probably the last time you will ever see them again. Everything will come to a screetching halt. Everything will stop. No days. No nights. No weeks, No Months, and No Years. All that will remain is an long drop straight into the center of the Sun. Along the way everything you see will be incinerated, baked to a crisp, and bombarded with the most intense radiation that it is possible to imagine. Air will cease to exist. Water will turn to steam and then break down into hydrogen and oxygen which will feed the fires of the incineration. It will not be a nice event.

Answer 5

As a number of them stated till now, the gravity on earth won't perish, through fact the gravity comes from the mass. If the Earth stops rotating, one a million/2 (the single in direction of the solar) would be burned by using very severe temperatures, and the different one would be freezing, through fact there'll be no longer something to heat it. If the Earth stops orbiting, it fairly is going to start up behaving like an asteroid. it fairly is going to start up shifting in direction of the closest physique with the superb rigidity of gravity ( in our case it fairly is the solar). in short, do no longer assume bright destiny if that occurs.

Answer 6

Well if we stopped orbiting around the sun, we would probably drift off either far away from the sun, in which case we freeze to death, or into the sun, in which case we all fry to death. But If we merely stopped rotating, then half of the world would just be dark 24/7 and the other half light 24/7

Answer 7

If the Earth stopped moving, you would have a very bad time.

I saved the technical bits for the experts.

Answer 8

One side would freeze to death & the other would roast & the weather would really get all screwed up big time.

Answer 9

it would be permanent night or day, and everywhere stuck in its present season.

i think animals would go crazy, plants would never bloom coz some places would have no spring, emmm, climate shifts and all sorts.

Answer 10

We'd all get whiplash!