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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

What if the earth stood still?

What if the earth stood still, and didn't rotate on its axis? 

We'd have a much different earth, according to Witold Fraczek of ESRI.  Not only would the day be as long as the year,

"If the earth's gravity alone was responsible for creating a new geography, the huge bulge of oceanic water—which is now about 8 km high at the equator—would migrate to where a stationary earth's gravity would be the strongest. This bulge is attributed to the centrifugal effect of earth's spinning with a linear speed of 1,667 km/hour at the equator. The existing equatorial water bulge also inflates the ellipsoidal shape of the globe itself."

So, all the land would be a bulge around the middle, with the oceans in the upper latitudes. 


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