Can I know something about the movement of earth?

rudi_in

Thank you for posting your question to the Ask Me Help Desk.

Here is a little info for starters...

Earth orbits the sun counterclockwise in an elliptical path completing the cycle once every year at the same time spinning on its own axis which is tilted 23.5° and completes one revolution per day.

If you are interested in something else perhaps you can be a bit more specific with your question.

Capuchin

Hi,
I hope to give you some better values about how fast the Earth is moving.

As rudi_in says, the earth is rotating around the sun once per year (this, along with the tilt, is what causes the seasons) If you work out the distances involved, this comes to 30km/s.

Then, the whole Solar system is moving about the center of the galaxy, completing a whole orbit in 200 million years. This works out to be an avergae speed of 230km/s.

Then, our galaxy is attracted to the centre of a group of local galaxies (which our galaxy is a part of) called the Local Group, this causes a speed of 40km/s

Then, the Local Group is moving against the cosmic background radiation at 600km/s.

All these velocities may be moving in opposite directions, so you can't just add them to get the total speed.

It turns out that the Sun is moving against the cosmic background radiation at about 370 km/s

This means that the Earth is hurtling through space at anywhere between 340 and 400 km/s dependant on the time of year!! (this slowly changes over time as the sun rotates around the center of the galaxy)

Add to this the speed a person moves at the equator of Earth (0.5 km/s) and anyone on earth could be moving anywhere from 339.5 to 400.5 km/s at one point in the year!

Doesn't feel like we're moving though does it?

I should mention that these values are all estimated. And the cosmic background radiation is used as a reference as it's the most stable thing we have.