• Question: Why does the world spin on it's axis?

    Asked by mylastlife to Chloe, Irene, Pierre, NULL, Uday on 12 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Irene Regan

      Irene Regan answered on 12 Nov 2015:


      Great Q 🙂
      Earth/world spins on its axis because of the way it was formed.
      Our Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a huge cloud of gas and dust started to collapse under its own gravity.
      As the cloud collapsed, it started to spin.
      Some of the material within this cloud gathered into swirling eddies and eventually formed into planets.
      As the planets formed, they kept this spinning motion.
      This is similar to what you see when skaters pull in their arms and spin faster.
      As material gathered in more closely to form a planet, like Earth, the material spun faster. The Earth keeps on spinning because there are no forces acting to stop it.

    • Photo: Pierre Casaubielh

      Pierre Casaubielh answered on 17 Nov 2015:


      A similar question was asked previously asked.

      It is due to the formation of Earth and our solar system.

    • Photo: Chloe Huseyin

      Chloe Huseyin answered on 17 Nov 2015:


      Irene has answered this really well already. I’d just like to say that we would be in big trouble if it stopped spinning suddenly! But thankfully that can’t happen 🙂

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