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Nuclear bombs are humankind's most powerful weapon, but
their destructive impact would unlikely alter the spinning of the Earth on its
axis.
One way to see this is to compare the energy of a nuclear
blast to that of the rotational motion of the Earth. The largest nuclear
bombs have an explosive energy of several tens of megatons, or about 10^17 Joules,
whereas the Earth's rotational energy is around 10^29 Joules.
So even if all the force of a nuclear explosion was used to
push the Earth in a particular direction, the energy in this push would be less
than a trillionth that of the rotational energy.
It would be like trying to divert a speeding car with the
energy of a flying mosquito.
Even the largest earthquakes have only a miniscule effect on
our planet's spinning. Scientists calculated that the colossal tsunami-causing
2004 Sumatra earthquake caused a slimming
of the Earth that shortened the
day by a few millionths of a second and shifted the North Pole by an inch.
The amount of fault-moving ("Earth-slimming")
energy in this magnitude
9.3 earthquake was estimated at more than 10&^22 Joules, or roughly
100,000 times that of the biggest nuclear bombs. So any effect of a nuclear
blast on Earth's rotation would be far below what is measureable.
One final note: Nuclear explosions would have even less
influence on the Earth's orbit
around the sun, as the planet's orbital energy is 10,000 times greater than its
rotational energy. This fact did not prevent the making of the 1961 film "The
Day the Earth Caught Fire," in which nuclear testing knocks the Earth out
of its orbit and towards the sun.
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