Sun rotates how fast

NASA says the probability for Earth stopping its spin is " practically zero " for the next few billion years. Theoretically, however, if the Earth did stop moving suddenly, there would be an awful effect.

The atmosphere would still be moving at the original speed of the Earth's rotation. This means that everything would be swept off of land, including people, buildings and even trees, topsoil and rocks, NASA added.

What if the process was more gradual? This is the more likely scenario over billions of years, NASA said, because the sun and the moon are tugging on Earth's spin. That would give plenty of time for humans, animals and plants to get used to the change. By the laws of physics, the slowest the Earth could slow its spin would be 1 rotation every days. That situation is called "sun synchronous" and would force one side of our planet to always face the sun, and the other side to permanently face away.

By comparison: Earth's moon is already in an Earth-synchronous rotation where one side of the moon always faces us, and the other side opposite to us. But back to the no-spin scenario for a second: There would be some other weird effects if the Earth stopped spinning completely, NASA said.

For one, the magnetic field would presumably disappear because it is thought to be generated in part by a spin. We'd lose our colorful auroras, and the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth would probably disappear, too. Then Earth would be naked against the fury of the sun. Every time it sent a coronal mass ejection charged particles toward Earth, it would hit the surface and bathe everything in radiation. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more!

And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space. Elizabeth Howell is a contributing writer for Space. She is the author or co-author of several books on space exploration. Elizabeth holds a Ph. She also holds a bachelor of journalism degree from Carleton University in Canada, where she began her space-writing career in In fact, they can do one whole rotation in a fraction of a second. How do we know that?

Well, pulsars shoot out a big beam of energy and we can pick up a flash of that beam as it goes past, rotating like this lighthouse light, only faster. The flashes of energy from the pulsar go past very fast and very often, so we know it is spinning incredibly fast. So as you can see, lots of things in space are spinning. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is also spinning. Humans have evolved here so we are used to the spinning, but if everything stopped spinning which is not likely to happen we would really feel it!

Read more: Curious Kids: What's going to happen to the Sun in the future? Will it explode? The differing speeds of rotation is called differential rotation, meaning different parts rotate at different speeds. In fact, scientists divide the sun into four general sections and each section spins at a different speed.

The innermost parts of the sun also spin differently than the outer layers. Scientists claim that the innermost layers of the sun do spin like a solid object.

Moreover, the inner layer also spins faster than the outer, gaseous layers. Scientists tend to measure the rotation of the sun by looking at its sunspots. Scientists believe that the movement of the inner layers and radiation moving towards the outer layers contributes to its magnetic fields.

You'd expect sunspots to be hot, but they're actually cold areas on the sun's surface, though "cold" is a relative term. Sunspots average around 5, to 7, degrees Fahrenheit 2, to degrees Celsius , in contrast to the areas surrounding them, which average around 9, degrees F 5, C. Live Science.