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Olivia Cheek

Mrs. Knite

English 2

What if the world...

October 10, 2021

What if the world...

If the Earth stopped spinning all at once, it would be devastating for the surface of the

earth. Though we don’t feel it, we’re all spinning along with the earth as it spins. The earth

rotates at about 1,000 miles per hour. If the planet suddenly stopped spinning, everything sitting

on the surface would go flying east, which includes people, houses, trees, boulders, everything,

being launched sideways at hundreds of miles an hour. After all that debris settles, high speed

winds, still moving as fast as the planet, would blow the surface clean.

If the slowdown of the earth happened gradually, the dramatic effects would still take

place, just over a longer amount of time. The first thing what would be noticed is that the sun is

taking well over a day to move across the sky. The apparent patterns of the Sun come from

rotation of the Earth, so if the planet stopped spinning, it would turn a single day into a half a

yearlong day.

The stopping of the earth would also mean no more hurricanes. In Nathaniel Scharping's

article “If the world stopped spinning” He describes hurricanes as “massive rotating storms that

are created by Coriolis forces that derives from the planet’s rotation. Winds pulled into the low-

pressure area of a growing storm are spun counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and

clockwise in the southern hemisphere, resulting in the spiraling lines and central eye that define a

hurricane.” This is one of the reasons that storms get so big. So, cutting them our is one of the

only good things that would happen if the Earth stopped spinning.
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But a motionless planet, overall, would be an absolute catastrophe for the elements, and

all the living creatures and organisms that belong to this world. Everything we know on this

earth would change drastically, and we would be left on this meaningless, motionless rock

floating through space. I think everyone would agree with me the fact that stopping the rotation

of the earth should not be anywhere on our agenda in the future.

Works Cited

Google

https://www.google.com/

Sharping, Nathaniel. “What if the earth stopped spinning?” Published: Thursday, April 15, 2021.

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https://astronomy.com/news/2021/04/what-would-happen-if-the-earth-stopped-

spinning