Could the Earth ever stop spinning, and what would happen if it did?

 There would be lots of changes. The Earth has been spinning since its birth, four and a half billion years ago.

The Earth was made from rubble that was left over when the sun formed from the collapse of a huge cloud of matter. The rubble that went on to become the Earth circled around the sun like water does around the plughole when you empty a bathtub, spinning as it went. The Earth continued to circle the sun and spin after it was formed and is going to spin like this for a long while to come. The Earth spins steadily, once every 23 hours and 56 minutes. During this time, the Earth also moves a little further on its orbit around the sun, which takes one year to complete. This means it needs to turn a bit more — for four minutes — until it faces the sun again. This means that one day on Earth lasts 24 hours. The reason the Earth keeps spinning is because there is hardly anything to stop it. If you spin a roundabout in a playground and let go, eventually it will come to a stop. This is because as it spins, the air and the surface of the playground are pushing against it, causing friction and slowing it down. The Earth is spinning in space, which is pretty much empty. In space, there is not even air to push against and slow down the Earth's spin. However, there is one thing that slows down the Earth's spin: the moon. 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. This imbalance creates the ocean tides, which make the oceans bulge out on either side of the Earth. Read more...

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