Expert: Tom Whiting - 4/24/2005

Question
Hve you ever been into space? if so what was the expierence like? What would happen if the earth stopped rotating?

Answer
Hi Keegan,
No, but I have been up to 55,000 feet in a KC-135 USAF
Tanker aircraft on a high altitude mission once, during
the S. E. Asia conflict, in 1970.   At that altitude, you could just barely make out the Earth's curvature.

Actually us people, with telescopes, we *look* into space all
the time, and probably enjoy that more than actually being
there, because we can enjoy looking at the objects in space without all that discomfort of spacesuits, packaged food and water, carrying your own air, etc.   That's the best way to do it....so, get a scope!

2nd question....how fast would you decelerate the Earth
down to zero, from it's 1,000 mile per hour rotation speed?
(at the equator).
If instantaneous, we'd all die due to rapid deceleration.
(like hitting a brick wall at 1,000 miles per hour).

If slowed down gradually, eventually, then we'd all experience 182.5 days (1/2 year) of sunlight, and 182.5 days of night-time, if the Earth didn't rotate.  {1/2 year facing the sun,
and 1/2 year facing away from the sun.}  
Since this is all hypothetical (and actually impossible to do)....I leave it to your imagination what global and climate changes would happen under those conditions.

Actually the Earth is slowing down it's rotation speed...the dinosaurs 65 million years ago enjoyed a 20 hour day, to our
current 24 hour day.  So in billions of years, we will slow
down our rotation, but only down to one rotation every
30 days, with the same side of the Earth facing the moon,
much as the moon does the same now with the Earth.
But this will take billions of years.

Just to show how much energy it would take, if you placed
all the nuclear weapons on the Earth and exploded them
at the same time, it would only slow (or speed up) the
Earth's rotation a few micro-seconds (millionths of a second)
much like that 9.2 Earthquake did in Indonesia around
Christmas time.  So it's not worth even thinking about, as
it takes far more energy than what we presently can
generate.
Hope all this helps,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA