If the earth stops rotating, where can I survive?

When you were young, you looked at the sky at night. The moon was looming from the back of the hill, but the moon at the middle of the night had already reached the top of the head. The teacher will tell us, "That's because the earth is turning all the time, and the day and night alternation, the rising and rising and the moon are also derived from the earth's rotation."

Image source: veer gallery

Is it really that simple? If you break the casserole and ask to the end, you may find that you can actually answer the following two groups that look very simple.

First, why is the earth rotating? Are other planets rotating? Is there a star that does not rotate?

Second, what will happen to the earth if you stop from turning? Can anyone survive from such an extinction?

This time, let's persist in breaking the casserole. How much secrets we do n’t know about the earth ’s rotation?

1. Why does the earth constantly rotate?

Let's talk about the conclusion first, the theoretical possibility of not rotating celestial bodies only in theory, and the actual celestial bodies are undergoing some form of rotation.

The main reasons are the following two points: first, the birth process of celestial bodies will inevitably have a certain initial angle momentum; second, the analogy with zero corner volume is in a state of unstable state. maintain. It sounds a bit around, but it doesn't matter. We explain the above two reasons in vernacular.

The formation of planets is roughly divided into two cases in the form. The first is that the substances that form the celestial bodies gather each other, constantly colliding friction, and eventually form the planet. It is like making marshmallow. The melted sugar shredded from the machine spraying out of the machine, and gradually entangled to form a large puppet. The second is the celestial bodies that already exist. For some reasons, they exploded, and some substances were thrown, and these substances formed a celestial body. For example, the flying tray that was thrown in the air was hit by a shotgun, and countless small particles were shot.

Imagination of the formation process of the solar system

Picture source: public field

From the perspective of these two forms of formation, no matter which one is, the sum of the angular motion of each part of the celestial body is difficult to happen. In other words, celestial body will naturally "turn" (that is, the heavens have a certain initial angle momentum at the time of birth). And according to the law of conservation of angle volume, this rotation cannot stop. It is precisely for this reason that the celestial body has been rotating at the moment when the birth process starts.

Let's take a look at the second reason below. Assuming that there is indeed a celestial body with a initial angle momentum, but this "perfect state" cannot be maintained for a long time. This is due to the gravity from other celestial bodies in the universe, and the rotation and revolving of these celestial bodies may cause changes in the state of gravity. For example, a boat that lost power in the stormy waves, even if it was still at the beginning, was inevitable to follow the fate of the wave.

The love star shot by the space detector in early December 2000 (the cycle is about 5 hours and 16 minutes)

Picture source: NASA

Based on the above two points, the celestial bodies in the universe are relative, and the transfer is absolute. This also meets the views of Marxist philosophy "relatively static, absolute movement".

Some people have asked questions -the moon is always the same as human beings. Doesn't this mean that the moon will not rotate? In fact, this is a speculative fallacy.

We can use our right hand to use fists as the earth, and the palm of the left hand as the side of the moon facing the earth. When you try to keep your left hand move around your right hand, you keep your palm towards the right fist. Turn. (In fact, the rotation and revolution of the moon happened to be synchronized. This phenomenon is called tidal lock or captured.)

Diagram of the lunar rotation. Pay attention to the difference between the left and right moonlight directions. The moon on the left is always rotating, and there is only one side facing the earth.

Picture source: Wikipedia Encyclopedia

2. What if the rotation is stopped, what will the earth do?

The earth has been rotating since its birth. In this billions of years, the rotation cycle of the earth has been changing, but the state of rotation has never changed. If we let go of ourselves, the brains are fully open, and the consequences of the earth's suddenly stopped rotation?

We know that the angular speed of rotation around the earth is the same, but the line speed is different. The equator is the largest and the pole is the smallest. The speed of the earth rotation near the equator is about 465 meters per second, so if you are in the equator, you can also achieve "80,000 miles on the ground" for a whole day. Even in the middle latitude region like Beijing, the speed of rotation can reach 370 meters per second.

Suppose that the earth stops within 0.1 seconds, everything that is not attached to the surface will be maintained out of the earth under the action of inertia. According to calculations, at this time, objects attached to the surface near Beijing will be accelerated equivalent to 370g (G represents gravity acceleration, 9.8m/s2).

Of course, the impact of high latitudes will be relatively small, so to what extent? If the latitude reaches 80 degrees, the human body will fly out in the direction of rotation after the earth is stopped, and the line speed will still reach 60 meters per second, and there is no chance of returning.

However, assuming that the earth stopped rotating at a very short moment, but slowly stopped, the situation would be slightly better. For example, we set the earth to stop within 1 minute. At this time, people in Beijing have accelerated less than 1 G in the direction of Earth's rotation. Although it is still very scary, if there is a suitable buffer, there is still hope to retrieve life or even unscathed. Many people will say that since the surface is unsafe, I just plane waiting for the earth to wait for the earth. Of course, the idea is very good, but you must know that the atmosphere of the earth's surface is also synchronized with the earth, that is, the same movement state.

Once the earth stops, the atmosphere will still move in the direction of rotation under inertia, that is, you will face a super storm of nearly 1,440 meters per hour over Beijing. No matter what kind of plane, I am afraid that it will not be able to resist such a violent air. So what will happen to the sea? Once the earth stops, even the Bohai Sea, which is not low in latitude, will set off supersonic waves. The entire earth surface will be swept by unprecedented super tsunami. However, the even more horrible is behind.

If our ideas are "rigorous", we will also consider the factors of conservation of energy. When a behemoth of the earth is in a rotation, it actually contains huge kinetic energy. If the earth stops, these kinetic energy will be converted to internal energy, which means that the earth will heat up while stopping.

According to estimates, the internal energy transformed when the earth stops can increase the temperature of the earth several hundred hundred. On the surface with the largest kinetic energy, the temperature may reach thousands of degrees. At this time, the surface will undoubtedly be a scene of purgatory, and even the entire earth may melt into liquid state.

In short, if the earth really stops turning tonight, no matter where they are, everyone will break their bones in an instant, and the earth itself will disappear from the universe. However, even if the earth's rotation cycle will change, the self -turn itself will still exist eternal, and the earth's stop is just a game of thought.

Produced: Popular Science China

Author: Coco

Producer: China Science Popularization Expo

The China Science Popularization Expo is the Science Popular Science Platform of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is sponsored by the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Relying on the high -end scientific resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is committed to spreading cutting -edge scientific knowledge and providing fun science and education services.

- END -