What do you think would happen to the planet (and everything in it) if the world stopped turning - one side was left in permanent daylight, the other in eternal darkness? Gravity etc remains as it is now. I would like to hear more about this "terminator" area where the dark meets the light. What would this environment be like? What do you rekon it would be like to live there? How would you survive? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Right now Mercury's rotation is locked into step with its orbit around the Sun, so that the planet makes 3 whole rotations in every 2 orbits around the Sun. This happens when a rotating body, like a planet or a moon, orbits around a much more massive object because tidal forces, which are caused by gravity, slow down the rotation of the smaller body until it locks into step with the orbital period. This is presumably what has also happened to make our own Moon's period of rotation equal to its orbital period around the Earth, and is also observed in the moons of the giant outer planets of the solar system.
The temperature on the dark side would plunge to below the boiling point of oxygen and nitrogen, so that the atmosphere on the dark side would condense. Air would flow from the light side to replenish this. With reduced air pressure the oceans on the light side would evaporate more rapidly. In a geologically short time period the atmosphere and hydrosphere would be frozen on the drak side of the planet. All but deep seated microbial life would be dead.
You dont think the extremes would create weather patterns that recycled the hot air to the cold area on the other side and vice versa? I mean, the gradient would be huge, and nature has a tendency to equal out a gradient....so i would think it wouldnt be as cold as one might think intuitively.
Research has been done on this. If I can find references I shall post them later. If the planetary year is around thirty days or less you can get sufficient circulation to avoid this outcome. For longer periods of time you just can't balance it. You progressively lose atmosphere on the cold side. Even though the amounts are small, over thousands of years they build up until the atmosphere is all gone.
Utter catastrophe. All civilization would collapse. Half the world would freeze, the other half cook. Perhaps our atmosphere would help keep temperatures somewhat in check, but I think oceans may very well boil off. The corriolis effect would stop, causing the oceans currents to stop which would further mess up climates. This would be nothing compared to 24 hours sunlight cooking everything, but without any circulation things would be extreme. Around the twilight area would be about the only place possible for life– cool enough for thing to stay alive, but with enough sunlight to grow. On one side would be a vast, frozen wasteland devoid of life, and on the other a sweltering desert. It would also depend on which side of the planet got stuck in the light. If a majority of oceans got stuck in the sun, then they'd probably start to boil off.
ya know, i wrote a story in like 9th grade about a planet like this... a lush jungle on one side, a freezing desert on the other
I've thought about this for a long time too. But I believe that Ophiolite's citation of the research where the atmosphere completely depletes is correct; The entire ocean and atmosphere would be frozen on the dark side in a huge ice cap.
I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here. The thread postulates a planet which is gravitationally locked with its primary. In that case it will rotate once for each orbit of its sun.
Don't have to think, it maybe weird but it has happened. Just look at the evidence. This is exactly what happened to Venus. This is how the Earth would look like. 450+ degrees C temperature, all the carbon dioxide in the Atmosphere. etc.
