Does the earth spin clockwise or counter clockwise? What would happen if it turned in the opposite direction?

Answer 1

Looking down from the North Pole, Earth is spinning counter clockwise. If it turned in the other direction, NY would be 3 hours behind LA.

Answer 2

Does The Earth Rotate Clockwise

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Does the earth spin clockwise or counter clockwise? What would happen if it turned in the opposite direction?

Answer 4

I guess it depends which pole you are at, looking down from the north pole the planet is spinning counter clockwise
Looking from the south pole it is spinning clockwise.

If the planet rotates in the opposite direction I don't think much would happen other than wind currents moving in the opposite direction. I guess if it decided to in the next few days there will be a lot of people feeling sick and dizzy, possibly floating off the planet and tides, etc getting messed up. But once it reaches the speed it was going I don't think anything would change.

Except in western movies the good guy's would be riding off into the sunrise.

Answer 5

The Earth spins counter clockwise if you were looking at it from the North poll.

If it spun the other way the sun would set in the east and rise in the west.

And clocks would go the other way too :-D
(Clocks go clockwise because sun dials were invented in the northern hemisphere and that's the standard direction the shadow travels as the sun goes over head).

Answer 6

You have struck upon the basis for Einstein's famous "Special Relativity" theory: Your perspective and position determine how you perceive the motion of other objects.

if you look at earth straight down at the North Pole, it appears to be spinning counter clockwise.

if you look a earth straight down from the South Pole (notice it is 'down' in both cases) it appears to be spinning clockwise

If you look at the earth from a point above the equator with the North Pole to your left and the South Pole to your right, the earth appears to be spinning bottom to top

If you look at the earth from a point above the equator with the North Pole to your right and the South Pole to your left, the earth appears to be spinning top to bottom.

What this tells you is that without first specifying how you are looking at the earth, your first question cannot be answered except with "It depends" (on your location and orientation).

This gets even more complicated when you ask "how do I figure out which is the "north" pole"? Astronomers use what is called "the Right Hand Rule" to determine if a rotation is "clockwise":

The north orbital pole of a celestial body is defined by the
right-hand rule: If one curves the fingers of the right hand
along the direction of orbital motion, with the thumb
extended parallel to the orbital axis, the direction the
thumb points is defined to be north


The theory is that the earth and most of the solar system's planets spin the way they do because of how they were formed out of the gas cloud that became the solar system. However Venus and Uranus spin differently. The theory is that Uranus spins "on its side" because of a collision with a very large comet or asteroid.

If the earth were to turn in the "opposite" direction of how it spins currently, a lot of things like seasons, where the sun rises and sets, the tides an all of those things would change, but the overall climate and such should stay about the same

Answer 7

Yes - depending on which pole you look at - counter clockwise from above the north pole, clockwise from above the south pole. If it turned in the opposite direction, the tidal forces from the moon and the sun would slow it down much faster... climate would be much different!

Answer 8

Looking down from the North Pole, the Earth spins counterclockwise. If it turned in the opposite direction--well, didn't you watch the first Superman movie where Lois Lane died in that earthquake/landslide that swallowed up her car and suffocated her before he could get there to save her? He flew around the planet clockwise and reversed time, saving the woman he loved from the jaws of terra firma itself. And then he wiped her mind clear of the rescue memory? Hmm. I wonder how he did that without that Men in Black memory eraser stick.

Answer 9

That depends if you are looking at Earth from the North Pole or the South Pole.

Looking from above the North Pole, Earth spins CCW; from the South Pole, its CW.

If it were to rotate the opposite direction, the days would be slightly longer, the climate would be different, and the tides would be diiferent - assuming the Earth's rotation around the sun and the moon's rotation around the Earth are the same. But don't worry, the Earth has been rotating the same direction (but slowing down slightly) for 4.5 billion years.

Answer 10

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/Enh3n

If the earth were to rotate the opposite way than it does now, the prevailing winds and most of your weather would come from the opposite direction. Easterly trade winds in the tropics would be westerly trades, and mid-latitude westerlies would become mid-latitude easterlies. The sun would also rise in the west and set in the east.