From our “What Keeps Us Up at Night” Department
comes this question. Are you one of us? A curious soul who can't live without asking
yourself all kinds of deep, thoughtful -- or even crazy hypotheticals? Like, why do birds fly, what if the sun never
set? Where did Rocky Road ice cream get its name? Hmm... anyway, why don't we try to figure
out the one about the sunset thing? Alright, so if the sun doesn't look as if
isn't going to set anytime soon, and it's been already several days, I’m guessing
the planet has probably stopped spinning. And this leaves us with all kinds of disturbing
notions. The first thing you would feel if Earth stopped
spinning would be a mighty jerk. Our planet rotates at a velocity of 1,037
miles per hour! That's twice as fast as the average speed
of a commercial jet and how quickly rumors spreads on Twitter. But since you rotate along with the planet
and everything else on it, you don't notice this at all. So now, imagine this: a car is accelerating
along the highway at a tremendous speed, and then the driver suddenly slams on the brakes. What's going to happen? Everything and everybody inside the car will
be thrown forward, and the passengers are lucky if they are wearing seat belts! But you wouldn't have a seat belt on when
Earth stopped spinning. That's why you, along with billions of other
people, would fly into the air at a speed of 1,037 miles. That's incredibly fast, but even this speed
is still not enough to launch you in space. That's why, unfortunately, you'll be only
flying over the surface of the planet. Until you hit something – going a thousand
miles an hour. Now the fact that Earth has stopped spinning
would mean nothing for the atmosphere, which would keep moving for a while. This would make for winds and waves you've
never seen before, even on TV. These gusts and tsunamis would wreak massive
destruction by wiping away buildings and cars, children's playgrounds and trees. But you know the worst thing that would happen? The winds would damage and erode the earth's
crust. Then, any break in Earth's spinning would
mess up gravitation. As a result, your "down" after the planet
stopped rotating would feel like it was at a 38-degree angle from the previous vertical
"down." And it would knock down the rest of the buildings
and vertical constructions. Now the Earth’s spin creates a force which
keeps oceans in place. If Earth stopped, all the water in the seas
and oceans would tend to head toward the poles. There would be one massive supercontinent
around the equator with south and north poles having turned into oceans. Many countries, such as Canada and Greenland,
and a big part of Europe and Asia would go underwater. Also, without rotation, the dark side of our
planet would be freezing while the bright side would be boiling. The constant sunlight would heat the planet
until the temperature rose above boiling at 212 degrees F. The central supercontinent
at the equator would get the most heat. As a result, rivers and lakes would boil away. Thus, any semblance of life would remain only
along narrow strips of land near the coast. But wait, there’s more: Earth stops spinning,
its gravity doesn't function anymore, and the next thing you have, should you survive
this so far, is there's no atmosphere (which is usually kept in place by the planet's gravitation
force). You probably know that the atmosphere protects
the planet from cosmic radiation. That's why the consequences of losing the
atmosphere would be – shall we say, bad! Our beautiful green planet would turn into
a lifeless lump of rock. Well, that's a pretty scary scenario! Luck for you, it's HIGHLY unlikely to happen,
and even if it did, it would take Earth around 1.9 trillion years to stop existing. So, you still have time to make your dreams
come true and accomplish stuff and binge-watch Bright Side and 5 minute Crafts. But hold on -- this isn't the only catastrophic
scenario which pops up in my head at night. What about this: what if the Sun suddenly
turned into a black hole? Would our planet get sucked inside and disappear? Well, research indicates this won't happen. It turns out that the Sun isn't big enough
to turn into a black hole! It's huge alright, but a star needs to be
ten times bigger than the Sun to finally condense into a black hole. And even if the Sun managed to get the status
of a black hole, it would be a itty bitty one, just 4 miles across. So that means that the gravitational force
of this baby black star wouldn't exceed its current amount. The Sun wouldn't contain more matter than
it has now, and it wouldn't move closer to the planets. So Earth wouldn't get sucked inside, and we’re
all relieved. Only there wouldn't be this warm ball of light
in the sky anymore, and the planet would freeze. Ice would cover its surface, the atmosphere
would fall on the planet as cold liquid rain, and the world would turn into one huge freezer. But your beer would stay cold. Okay. But wait, what if a stray black hole entered
the Solar System? Would it be able to swallow Earth? Don’t I really need to get some sleep? Although the black hole would be thousands
of times smaller than Earth, its mass would that much greater. You wouldn't see the approach of the black
hole, but you might notice our neighboring planets disappear one by one. You’ll also notice your neighbors disappearing
too. Whoops there goes another one! As soon as the black hole reached the asteroid
belt between Jupiter and Mars, Earth would already start to feel its gravitational pull. It would begin to tear the planet apart causing
volcanic super-eruptions and catastrophic earthquakes. Even before the black hole reached our planet,
Earth would already look like an uninhabitable magma-laden chunk of rock. I am somewhat relived by the math that the
possibility of a stray black hole devouring our planet is one in a trillion. Worse odds than the super lotto. So let’s move to the next troublesome question:
what if the Sun threw up – I mean blew up? If it happened one day, our yellow star would
turn into a much cooler red giant. During this transformation, the Sun would
consume Venus, Mercury, and Earth. At least, we wouldn't have to suffer for long,
since the catastrophe would take no more than one day. At first, you would be oblivious to the solar
explosion that's just happened. It takes sunlight 8 minutes and 20 seconds
to reach Earth. That's why if the Sun blew up, you wouldn't
realize it for - you've probably already guessed - precisely 8 minutes and 20 seconds. That’s why I’m leaving with the Dolphins
before it happens. So long and thanks for all the fish. If the Sun exploded, it would shoot out a
huge amount of very powerful energy. As soon as it reached the planet, this energy
would wipe all life forms off the surface of Earth. But gee, let's imagine that our planet managed
to somehow survive and even keep going without the light from the Sun. Unfortunately, the left-over radiation would
make sure that nobody and nothing survived the disaster. Besides, Earth wouldn't have its ozone layer
anymore, and, therefore, there would be nothing to protect the planet from cosmic radiation,
high temperatures, and other dangerous stuff coming from space. Well, there’s no way to spin this to a happy
ending, is there? As you see, it's in our best interest to keep
the Sun safe. But what if a gigantic comet crashed into
our star? Would the Sun suffer from such a collision? Would you like to lock me up in the garage
now? First of all, to reach the Sun's lower atmosphere,
the comet needs to be not just massive but really-massive! If a comet was big enough and it happened
to pass close to the Sun, the star's gravity would catch it and accelerate its steep fall
up to 373 miles per second. As a result, the comet would get flattened
like a pancake even before it reached the lower atmosphere. A few moments later, the comet would explode
and release X-rays and ultraviolet radiation. It would look as if a bomb was blown up on
the Sun. With a gigantic comet, the collision might
even cause sun-quakes in the solar atmosphere. But according to scientists, people wouldn't
feel even the slightest echo of this event, so, I guess, there's no point in worrying
about this scenario. Alright I feel better now, no more doom and
gloom -- until tomorrow night… Hey! Do you have any other what-if questions left
unanswered? Go ahead and write about them in the comment
section below and let's discuss them together! Remember to hit the like button, share this
video with your curious friends, and subscribe to the channel to move to the Bright Side
of life!
