If the Earth stopped spinning, you wouldn't suddenly be launched off into space. Even if this happened, it is more likely that it would change the way Earth spins, not stop it altogether. The only thing that could stop the Earth's spin would be if another planet crashed into it. It means that Earth's day lengthens by one second every 50,000 years. This imbalance creates the ocean tides (opens in new tab), which make the oceans bulge out on either side of the Earth.Īs the Earth spins, these bulges move across the Earth's surface like a wave, pushing against the Earth's spin. The motion of the side of the Earth facing the moon is not balanced perfectly by gravity, and neither is the side of Earth facing away from the moon. However, there is one thing that slows down the Earth's spin: the moon. In space, there is not even air to push against and slow down the Earth's spin. The Earth is spinning in space, which is pretty much empty. This is because as it spins, the air and the surface of the playground are pushing against it, causing friction (opens in new tab) and slowing it down. If you spin a roundabout in a playground and let go, eventually it will come to a stop. Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us.The reason the Earth keeps spinning is because there is hardly anything to stop it.
These different day lengths are because of how the planets were formed and what knocked into them when they were very young. It actually spins in the opposite direction to all of the other planets except Uranus.
Does the earth spin clockwise full#
Venus has the longest day (if you define day as meaning one full spin) of nearly 117 Earth days. Mercury’s day is about 59 Earth days, while Jupiter’s day is only 10 Earth hours long. Here are some more cool planet spinning facts:Īll the planets have different day lengths. And if an asteroid or comet hit the Earth, that might speed us up, slow us down or even knock us over (scientists think this may be what happened to Uranus, which is actually on its side - you can tell by the vertical stripes the clouds make rather than the horizontal ones you see on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn). The Sun’s gravitation also causes the Earth to slow down a bit too. In the age of the dinosaurs, a day was 22 hours rather than 24 hours that it is today. How do we know that? Well, scientists examining rocks realised that there used to be many more days in a year. When the Earth and Moon were very new, the Moon was much closer (in fact it is thought that the Moon was once part of Earth but they came apart during an explosive collision with a huge asteroid.) As a result, the Moon is also slowly moving away from us. Because of this, the Earth is slowing down very slowly (about 1 second every 50,000 years). You might have heard that the Moon causes the waves and tides in our oceans. However, some things are slowing the Earth down or could change its spinning in the future. That is why the Earth has continued to spin for a very long time.Ĭurious Kids: will the universe expand forever, or contract in a big crunch?
There’s no air outside our own atmosphere to slow it down either. It’s not spinning on the ground, so the ground won’t slow it down. It would take a LOT of energy to slow down the spinning Earth because it is so big. It will keep spinning unless something slows it down. That’s why they can spin for so long.īut eventually, even the air around you can cause friction and slow down a spinning top or a fidget spinner. There’s not much friction in a fidget spinner toy. Have you ever slowed yourself down while you’re riding downhill by dragging your foot on the ground? That’s friction.
Eventually it stops because the ground it is spinning on is taking energy away from the toy top through something called friction.įriction is where something rubs on or drags on an object and takes energy away. You added energy to it by starting the spin off with your hand. In theory, a spinning object will just keep spinning forever unless you add energy or take it away. But why does it keep spinning? Why the spin continues We’ve covered what made the Earth start spinning, and what made it pick up speed. So when all of the rocks in the clump of dust and gas started coming together, that made the Earth’s spin speed up. It’s just like how an ice skater or a ballerina brings in his or her arms when they want to spin faster. When you make a spinning object more compact, it spins faster.
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