Will the direction the Earth rotates ever change?

We don't know. the only way we think it could change in any radical way is by a major impact with another celestial body. Even the biggest asteroids we know like Ceres ( 450 kilometers in diameter) is not really big enough to do much more than annihilate all life on this planet. It might tilt the Earth's axis by a few degrees depending on the details of the collision. There are no 'planned' large-body collisions with the Earth for at least a few billion years. This gives us more than enough time to solve all of humanities problems before the lights go out.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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