#rotation

Content tagged "rotation".

2 items (2 articles, 0 stories)

Articles

If Earth Stopped Spinning, the Oceans Would Flee to the Poles and Land Would Ring the Equator

October 13, 2026

Right now, you're being carried eastward at about 1,670 km/h. That's the speed of Earth's rotation, and the centrifugal force it creates is quietly piling up ocean water at the equator. Stop the spin, and the water would drain toward the poles, leaving a continuous belt of land circling the globe. A thought experiment on how much of the sky and sea we take for granted only exists because the planet keeps turning.

What if, in Space? #Earth#rotation#thought experiment

Giant Planets Spin Faster Than 'Failed Stars' — A Surprising Mass-Spin Reversal

August 22, 2026

Keck Observatory's KPIC instrument measured the spin of giant gas planets and brown dwarfs ('failed stars') using spectroscopy. In the HR 8799 system, the brown dwarf — more than three times heavier — rotates about six times slower than its lighter planetary neighbor. The likely culprit: a newborn planet's magnetic field braking against its birth disk, offering a new way to tell planets and stars apart.

Searching for Another Earth #exoplanets#brown dwarfs#Jupiter#rotation