Our earth always rotates without stopping, from day to night, from January to December. But, what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating suddenly?
Okay, when the Earth stops suddenly, the atmosphere will still move super-fast! Imagine that it feels like a car on a highway that is speeding and braking suddenly. As a result, there will be a super-large storm with a speed that can flatten the entire surface of the earth.
Hmm, but what if our earth slowly slows down until it finally… stops?
It turns out that even now the speed of our earth’s rotation continues to decrease! But, calm down and don’t panic! It will still take billions of years until the Earth stops rotating! But in the future… if humans can still survive when the earth stops rotating, our way of life will change drastically. What’s the story?
Hmm, when the earth stops rotating, that one day will be so long! The days will last for 6 months and so will the nights. This makes the temperature on earth super hot on one side and freezing on the other. The only way for humans to survive is to live continuously moving to follow the movement of the boundary between day and night, which has a cool name… the Twilight Zone!
If that were to happen, seawater wouldn’t be a barrier for humans to keep moving around! That’s because when the earth stops rotating, new continents will be created that surrounds the earth along the equator. How come? Simply put, the rotating earth causes a force that makes water collect in the middle of the earth. So, when the earth stops rotating, the seas and oceans will move to places where the gravitational force is large, like the North Pole and South Pole.
Maybe, it’s still a very long time until our earth stops rotating. But, when that time comes, will humans be able to survive? Or will humans become extinct?
