There are many dark mysteries surrounding our universe. Are you also interested in unraveling some of the scientific facts? Before going deep into the universe let’s gather some knowledge about our own home planet, Earth. Earth is currently the only known planet in the solar system to support life, but have you wondered why only earth? Or how only earth? Out of all different questions coming in your mind one is why does the earth rotate? So, what are waiting for get the answer to your scientific curiosity?
The explanation to the question why does the earth rotate can be answered using simple physics phenomenon called as angular momentum. The answer lies in the law of conservation of angular momentum. Before jumping in the concept of law of conservation of angular momentum get some idea on angular momentum. Angular momentum is the fact that keeps a thing in motion and the law of conservation of angular momentum is simply what keeps the chunk of mass spinning and spinning.
Earth formed when a nebula collapsed and as soon as it collapsed it started rotating. Many other forces like gravitational pull and inertia also helped in keeping the earth spinning till date. The simple reason for earth rotation is it was born spinning.
But there are many factors that do effect the rotation of the earth like sun’s gravitational pull. Generally the planets close to sun rotate slowly as compared to the planet far away from sun because sun’s gravity slows down the rotation. One other factor that effects earth rotation is tidal pull of the moon. Due to the tidal pull of the moon the rotation of the earth is slowing down at a rate of 1 millisecond per year.
The only way to stop earth rotation is via sun’s gravity after it turned into a red giant phase but there will be no life on earth to witness this phenomenon.
