Dmytro Olegovich Zakharchuk/Alamy
If Earth stopped rotating, would this affect the force of gravity?
Chris Daniel
Glan Conwy, UK
When Earth rotates as normal, the centripetal acceleration of the ground under your feet at the equator has the net effect of reducing the force of gravity on you, so you about 0.3 per cent less than would be the case with gravity alone. This effect decreases with distance away from the equator and becomes zero at the poles. The centripetal acceleration is always perpendicular to the axis of Earth’s rotation and points away from the local vertical towards the equator by…
