🛑 What if Earth stopped rotating?
One side roasts, one side freezes — and a 'day' becomes a year.
Try it: Earth Rotation Laboratory
- Day length (sidereal)
- 23.934 hours
- Equatorial surface speed
- 1,672.52 km/h
- Centrifugal acceleration (equator)
- 0.0338791 m/s²
- Effective gravity (equator)
- 9.77277 m/s²
Simplified: spherical Earth, equator only. Does not model shape change, oceans, atmosphere or geology.
Equations: T = T₀/f · v = f·ω₀·R · a = (f·ω₀)²·R · g_eff = g − a. Reference: sidereal day 23.934 h, Earth radius 6,371 km.
The science
If rotation stopped (but Earth kept orbiting), each place would face the Sun for roughly six months, then darkness for six months. Set the laboratory slider to 0×: centrifugal acceleration vanishes and equatorial gravity rises by about 0.034 m/s².
Immediate consequences (modelled)
Extreme day-night temperature swings; the equatorial ocean bulge relaxes toward the poles over time.
Possible long-term consequences (hypotheses)
Climate models suggest a harsh world, though oceans would moderate coasts. A sudden stop (rather than gradual) would be catastrophic due to inertia — everything not anchored would keep moving eastward at up to 1,670 km/h.
Assumptions: 'Stopped' means no spin relative to distant stars; orbital motion continues.
Limitations: Does not model climate, geology, biology or engineering in full detail.
Reference: NASA / peer-reviewed planetary science