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a fast-spinning earth?
The laws of physics dictate that if the earth were to make one revolution on its axis every 90 minutes or so, objects at the equator would be weightless. But what if the earth were to suddenly spin faster than that, say, once every hour. What would be the short- and long-term consequences of such rotation? Just curious!
3 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Since gravity is the only thing holding the earth together, if you spin it faster than about 5 miles per second (one rotation every 1.4 hours) the earth would fly apart. Actually, it would fly apart at much less than that, because the equatorial bulge would increase the faster it spins. But putting that aside, if the earth spun faster than that without ripping apart it would be like negative gravity and everything would fall up instead of down (due to centrifugal force overpowering gravity).
- 1 decade ago
I'm just guessing, but Earth might end up with a nice ring system like Jupiter (long term) but nobody would be alive to appreciate it (near immediate effect)
At the very least, the equatorial "bulge" would become much greater, and the resulting earthquakes and volcanism would probably extinguish all life.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
It would elongate at the equator and eventually break up into a new asteroid belt between the planet Mars and Venus!
