Yes I know space has little to no air. What I mean is, if the Earth when rotating gets slowed down because it has to turn through the atmosphere around it. Does this have an effect on the way the Earth works (If Earth stopped moving one side would freeze?).
204263
Most of the atmosphere rotates with the earth, but yes, I'm sure inertial effects produce a tiny, tiny amount of friction.  More important are tidal effects of the moon's gravity, which are gradually slowing down the earth's rotation.  In a few billion years the difference in the length of the day will be noticeable.  And there's another kind of "air" resistance -- the solar wind, a continuous (but varying) stream of particles ejected by the sun.  These are mostly charged particles and are deflected by the earth's magnetic field toward the poles, where they produce the auroras (borealis and australis?), the northern and southern lights.
25011
The gravitational pull  of the planet tends to stop the atmosphere disappearing into space.\n\nAnother point is that tha atmosphere is never still, it is continually in motion due to the rotation of the planet and the heating and cooling from both the sun and the differences between the land/sea and the hotter.cooler parts of the planet.
540834
It does! It is going slower and slower all the time, due to the gravitational drag of the moon. Eventually, there will be tidal lock, and the moon will be much further away. And you and I will be a billion years dead.\nSee, all this happens on a PLANETARY time scale. We can't perceive it, except with very very sensitive devices that have only become available fairly recently.\nAs to why it spins ... maybe its happy? \nNo no no. It spins because it retains the orbital movement from when it coalesced into a solid mass. At the core, there is a gravitational singularity, and all the matter that makes up our planet is/was in orbit around it, but reached equilibrium in the collapse, forming the "solid" planetary mass.\nWhat astronomers are only now coming to realize (having deduced that there is a lot more matter in the universe than is readily observable) is that there are gravitational singularities at the core of virtually every large-scale body - planets, stars, and galaxies. \nThe whole notion of planets "coalescing" WITHOUT such a singularity is absurd, even in a Newtonian universe.\nSo, if you dug a deep enough hole, you would find a hole. Neat-o, huh?
490232
I don't think anything can rot without air. Depending where it was, it could either freeze, or burn into nothing...
622671
"Space air"?\nIt is really hard to decipher what you are trying to ask.\n\n"Space" is pretty close to being a vacuum (for all intensive purposes for us here on Earth), thus there is no "air" in space.\n\nThe concept of there being some type of medium in space which everything travels through (the idea of an "aether", the material which allowed light to propigate through empty space) has since been disproven over well 100 years ago by the Michelson-Morley experiment.
93355
Yes.  \n(1) The centripetal force due to rotation is greatest at the equator and vanishes near the poles.  Things literally weight more at the poles than the equator.  Rockets carrying satellites are typically launched from equatorial regions because it takes less fuel.\n\n(2) The coriolis (sp?) effect results from Earth's rotation.  Something moving in a straight line has the Earth turn out from underneath it.  This makes hurricaines spin in their respective directions in the northern or southern hemisphere.  Also, a "good" pendulum will seem to rotate it's swing over 24 hours.  It's going the same way - the Earth turns beneath it.
291835
This is about conservation of momentum. Any object on a rotating (and for our experiment atmosphere-less) planet has the same rotational momentum and angular velocity  as the surface. If it jups up, it will increase the radius, and therefore reduce the angular velocity, so it will land further behind.
83540
It is possible for the earth to hold an atmosphere due to its gravitational field.  All objects (of any size) are attracted to other objects (of any size) this is called gravity.  The earth's gravitational field therefore holds the oxygen, nitrogen, etc. inside its gravitational field because due to its size its gravity pulls the oxygen molecules to it.  This is also reason why there is more oxygen air etc.  at sea level than in the mountains.  As you ascend higher the gravity is less than at sea level so less air is held by gravity.
592450
Have you stopped beating your wife yet? The way you pose the question is not sincere -- you've already interspersed conjecture. There ARE 4 corners to the earth when you look at the REAL earth from space. They are not sharp 90% angles, but nevertheless, the earth is not perfectly spherical. Check out DrDino.com and watch 28 hours of creation facts. There are far more holes in any other explanation for earth's beginning, just check them out. There were no clouds prior to the flood, it was a canopy of water. Similar, but not the same, Saturn has an ice halo around it. Earth had a complete canopy above it which regulated it temperature perfectly. Much thicker and integral than the ozone layer today. Upon God's judgment, God caused this canopy to colapse, forever altering the tropical paradise type atmosphere which allowed all manner of life to flourish, even at the poles. Animals with fresh produce still undigested have been found at the poles, frozen. Why? So God could be glorified thousands of years later when man would examine such evidence. Chances are God used a huge deep-space frozen comet or asteroid to knock the earth slightly out of a true orbit around the sun, the collision resulting in the collapse of the canopy AND cause the earth to tilt. If it were frozen nitrogen, it would quickly freeze even the largest of animals in the area the debris hit the earth. Keep in mind, God gives answers to the humble and the contrite in spirit, not to the proud.
78510
Well, without the moon, we'd have almost no tides, which could present its own set of problems. Given that a lot of our weather can be ultimately relatable to tidal action, this could be potentiall disasterous, even if no fragments ever hit earth.\n\nAlmost everyone's answer concerns an extinction level event on earth, and that's not necessarily true. The earth is not a static point around which the moon rotates. Rather, due to the fact that the moon is an appreciable fractional size of the earth, the 2 combine in its revolution around the sun around a mutual center of gravity called a barycenter. Without the moon, the earth's revolution would be subject to some variation given the fact that now only the sun's gravity is affecting the earth.\n\nThe moon does rotate around the earth however; it's not just sitting there in space. Depending on the angle of impact of an incoming planetoid (at the size of the moon, asteroid would be rather small), not every impact would cause an extinction event on earth. For example, if an incoming planetoid impacted from an angle where the planetoid cuts between the orbital paths of the earth and the moon, the impact would cause the debris to enter an elliptical orbit, rather than a circular one, around the earth. It would remain to be seen if said orbit would be dangerous.\n\nIf the planetoid hit the moon from behind AND tangential to the moons orbit, very few of the fragments would actually impact the earth. The debris would continue in the original orbit, but accelerated based off the original velocity of the planetoid. This would decrease the period of revolution around the earth for the remaining debris.\n\nWhat everyone else is describing is where the planetoid would approach from outside the E/M system that would cause such huge devestation on earth. Or, if the planetoid hit the moon headon, causing a slowing of the moons orbital rate by the velocity of the incoming planetoid.\n\n"Freezing at night" is not a valid outcome; the moon shines light on us; it doesn't radiate heat. "Tidal waves" are really related to underwater earthquakes, not actual tidal action by the moon (think about it; every place on the coast experiences high and low tides 2x every 24hrs 34 minutes; if the moon created "tidal waves" every seacoast would be innundated horribly, and without the use of hurricanes!). Electric bills, as someone put, would remain the same (think about it; if it's dark outside, you turn on the lights, regardless of whether or not it's a full moon). Crime rates would probably go up a little in the outlying areas (where there is less artificial illumination to begin with), but not as horribly as someone described.\n\nJust remember: not all impacts would be bad. ;-)
270053
No easily measurable effect. There is a small Coriolis effect when flying north or south, but not when flying east or west. The air and Earth are all rotating as a unit, so except for wind, it is no different than driving on the ground. Wind speed and direction is controlled more by heating from the Sun than anything else, and it can blow in any direction. True, prevailing winds to tend to make for quicker travel in one direction, but that is not what you are talking about I think.
320833
No, Mars doesn't stop and reverse its direction in space. Mars and Earth are like race cars on an oval track. Earth has the inside lane and moves faster than Mars -- so much faster, in fact, that it makes two laps around the course in about as much time as it takes Mars to go around once. About every 26 months, Earth comes up from behind and overtakes Mars.\n\nCheck out the excellent animated graphics at this website that shows exactly what happens -->http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/allabout/nightsky/nightsky04-2003animation.html
354757
Just over 1000 miles per hour at the equator.\n\nYou don't feel it because it's constant.  When you're in a car, or an airplane, and you're running steady, you don't feel the speed.  Relative to your position, it doesn't change.  \n\nNow, if someone put the brakes on the rotation, things would go flying (but be held in place by gravity).\n\n\nEDIT:  Amy,  your answer is too spooky to mine!
33080
No oxygen in space. Need to bring or make your own.\nNo gravity or very weak affects the human body in many ways, one big is it weakens ones bones(and muscles).
145486
The earth turns with respect to the motion of force which was placed upon it with in the vacuum of space, and also with respect to the vacuum of space there is no friction to slow it down, therefor it shall continue to spin forever if it's motion is uninterrupted, or unaltered by another matter energy object of aether large size, or fast speed impacting it with direct respect to the angle of the interaction.\n\nas for your second question the axis is the center point at which the spin turns, and is therefore recognized by us with respect to the earths motion spin as the axis, and if the motion and direction of spin were changed tomorrow to be perpendicular of that which it is today, then the new axis would be perceived tomorrow as existing at some point at which we recognize the equator today.
250315
There is something to this.  The net angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system is such that it is fairly stable to the small torques introduced by other planets.  For instance, the orientation of Mars' rotational axis is believed to have changed dramatically over time.  This is shown with numerical models. \n\nThe moon is moving farther away from the earth.  Angular momentum  is transfered by tides.  The tidal bulge of the Earth remains oriented towards the moon.  The earth rotates under this bulge and drags it forward a bit. The gravity of the bulge itself then pulls the moon ahead in its orbit some.  The net effect is the earth's rotation slows, and moon moves to a slightly larger orbit.\n\nAt some point, the Moon's orbital period will be the same length as the Earth's rotational period and the Earth and moon will be tidally locked to one another. \n\nRegardless, the entire system will still have a lot of angular momentum and the Earth will be fairly immune to significant changes to the obliquity of its rotation.
162761
Smaller bodies are more readily affected than are larger bodies, and closer bodies are more readily affected than farther bodies.  Many of the moons in the solar system are locked to their planets in much the same way that our moon is locked with earth.  Pluto and its moon Charon are thought to both be locked to each other.  The constant pull of our moon is actually slowing the earth down slowly but surely with every tide.  It will take billions of years, and the sun will likely burn us to a cinder before we get locked in with the moon, but it is happening.  As for why the sun doesn't lock us in, well, the moon kind of saves us from that.  If we were spinning more slowly than the moon was rotating around us, it would try to pull us faster to reach equilibrium (though the earth would succeed in slowing its rotation down (and into an ever deteriorating orbit...probably why we don't see any examples of this in nature) more than it would succeed in speeding us up).  In fact, we are slowly imparting more speed to the moon with every rotation, and the moon is expanding its orbital radius in every rotation as a result.  Given enough time, it would escape.\n     If we had no moon to keep us "spun up", the sun would  probably have a little more effect on us.  Mercury, though not locked with the same face towards the sun, is rotating very very slowly, likely due to the same forces that we are talking about.  Venus is rotating even more slowly than Mercury...and in retrograde (some believe as a vestige of some primordial collision).  Again, given enough time the sun would probably succeed in locking both Venus and Mercury...but time is not on the sun's side.  It will likely reach it's red giant stage (vaporizing both Mercury and Venus as well as Earth) before it succeeds in "locking them in".