And can the rotation of the Earth be clockwise?
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After the Earth formed and all the component asteroids and other proto-planetary debris coalesced the residual spin from the collisions left us spinning counter-clockwise.  Were there to be another collision, a series of collisions, or close interaction with some super-massive object (i.e. black hole, brown dwarf, etc.) with enough momentum or gravity to retard, stop or reverse our rotation, it could definitely do so.  Venus is an example of a planet in a retrograde rotation (probably because some massive impact reversed its spin), so it is definitely possible...hell, Uranus spins almost 90 degrees out of alignment with the orbital plane.  Most planets in our solar system spin in relatively the same direction, and that is likely to be the case in most systems in the universe, but it is by no means set in stone.
586142
The Earth is about 12,750 kilometers (km) in diameter.\n\nHere are some answers to some more of your questions:\n\nHow old is the earth?\nThe earth is about 4.5 billion years old. That is 45,000,000,000 years. The sun, the moon, the planets, and nearly everything in our solar system was formed at the same time, so they are all 4.5 billion years old. \nHow does the earth spin?\nIf you look around at planets, stars, and galaxies in the universe you will see that EVERYTHING spins! This is because planets like Earth (and stars and galaxies) formed from a large cloud of gas and dust. As gravity pulled the cloud together, any little bit of spin gets multiplied. This is known to scientists as the Conservation of Angular Momentum. You can try this out yourself. Find a chair that spins easily and sit on it. Start out by spinning with your arms outstretched, then pull them in to your body. Did you notice that the chair started to spin faster when you pulled your arms in? The same thing happens as the planet forms — as its gas, dust, and rocks fall together the planet spins up faster and faster. Later other things can affect the spin. Earth and the moon pull on each other, affecting both their spins and the orbit of the moon. It's quite a dance! \n\nHow fast is the earth spinning and why can't we feel it spin?\nThe circumference of (distance around) the earth is 2 x PI x radius, which turns out to be about 24,000 miles. Since the earth turns once per day (or 24 hours), that is 1,000 miles per hour! We don't feel that because everything else is moving with us and because the motion is very, very smooth. It's kind of like sitting in a car and reading a book or playing a game. If the car is going very smoothly, with no stops or bumps, and you don't look out the window, you wouldn't know you were moving. The only reason we know the earth is turning is because the sun and stars move across the sky. \n\nWhat is the exact tilt of the earth? How much does it change throughout the year?\nThe tilt of the earth is 23.45 degrees. This is measured as the tilt of the earth's equator compared to its orbit around the sun. The amount of the tilt doesn't change with time, but the direction that the earth's poles are pointed does. This is called precession. It is just like the wobbling of a spinning top. The direction that the North Pole (and South Pole) is pointed moves in a circle in the sky very slowly, completing each circle once every 26,000 years. \n\nWhy does only Earth have so much oxygen?\nThat's a very good question — no other planet in the solar system has so much oxygen. The answer is — life! Earth did not originally have a lot of free oxygen in the atmosphere. The oxygen was mostly combined with other elements to make carbon dioxide, water, or in rocks. But as early life evolved, especially plants, well they give off oxygen. So the reason we have so much oxygen in our atmosphere — and we are here and can breathe it! — is due to plant life on the earth! \n\nHow can rockets get through the earth's atmosphere, but comets can't?\nObjects hitting our atmosphere usually burn up because they are hitting it so fast. Usually they are moving at hundreds or thousands of miles per second. Rockets and the shuttle move more slowly (although pretty fast compared to cars on the highway). Here's a comparison. If you jump into a swimming pool from the high board and hit the water really hard, it stings and you make a big splash. But if you step into the water slowly, it feels fine and you make only a little ripple. The same thing happens to meteors — they hit the earth's atmosphere real hard and go splat! \n\nIf a comet hit the earth, what would happen?\nIt could cause a big explosion. The nucleus of a comet is thought to be a mile or two in size. The nucleus is made up of ice and rock, but we aren't sure how solid it is. Something that big hitting the earth from space would be bigger than
313506
this is a fallacy.  The toilet doesn't flush in any particular order.  It's not big enough to experience the coriolis effect.  You can try your own experiment.  Flush your toilet 10 times and see which way the water goes.  So to answer your question, yes the toilet will flush on the equator, it's still subject gravity.
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The answer is that water can go clockwise or counter-clockwise in either hemisphere. It's a myth that it only goes in one direction in either hemisphere.\n\n    Does water go down the drain counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere?\n\n\n    It all depends upon how the water was introduced and the geometric structure of the drain.\n\nOne can find both counterclockwise and clockwise flowing drains in both hemispheres. Some people would like you to believe that the Coriolis force affects the flow of water down the drain in sinks, bathtubs, or toilet bowls. Don’t believe them! The Coriolis force is simply too weak to affect such small bodies of water.\n\nIn his work “Sur les equations du movements relative des systems des corps” (1835) the French engineer Gaspard Gustav de Coriolis (1792-1843) first described this force. The Coriolis force is caused by the earth’s rotation. It responsible for air being pulled to the right (counterclockwise) in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left (clockwise) in the Southern Hemisphere. \n\nThe Coriolis Effect is the observed curved path of moving objects relative to the surface of the Earth. Hurricanes are good examples. They curve to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. What makes the hurricanes move in this way is the Coriolis force. \n\nWhat happens at the equator? The Coriolis force is too weak to operate on the moving air at the equator. This means that weather phenomena such as hurricanes are not observed at the equator, although they have been observed at 5 degrees above the equator. In fact, the Coriolis force pulls hurricanes away from the equator.\n\nFor a more detailed explanation of the Coriolis Force see Science World, http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/CoriolisForce.html \n\nRelated Web Sites \n"Getting around the Coriolis effect" - This paper provides a scientific explanation of the Coriolis effect complete with diagrams and examples. It was written by David J. Van Domelen, of the Ohio State University Department of Physics, Physics Education Research Group. \n\nDanish Wind Industry Association - The Coriolis Force\nThis Web site provides animated models of how the Coriolis Force works. \n\nBad Coriolis - The author of this Web site sets the record straight about the Coriolis Force. Presented are numerous cases where incorrect information was provided by reliable sources. Also included are Frequently Asked Questions. \nCoriolis Force - Included in this Web site, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is an explanation of the Coriolis Force and a video demonstrating the Force.\n\nFrom the website "Bad Coriolis":\n\nThe direction of rotation of a draining sink is determined by the way it was filled, or by vortices introduced while washing. The magnitude of these rotations may be small, but they are nevertheless gargantuan by comparison to the rotation of the Earth. I decided to include a picture of a draining sink, and the first one I tried in my house was found to drain clockwise (the opposite of what the silly assertions would have it do here in the northern hemisphere). This direction was determined entirely by the way the tap filled the sink. The direction of rotation of a draining toilet is determined by the way the water just under the rim is squirted into the bowl when it is flushed.\n\n\n\n Is it possible to detect the Earth’s rotation in a draining sink?\n\nYes, but it is very difficult. Because the Coriolis force is so small, one must go to extraordinary lengths to detect it. But, it has been done. You cannot use an ordinary sink for it lacks the requisite circular symmetry: its oval shape and off-center drain render any results suspect. Those who have succeeded used a smooth pan of about one meter in diameter with a very small hole in the center. A stopper (which could be removed from below so as to not introduce any spurious motion
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No, the Earth moves around the sun at a rate of once per year.\n\nReligion cannot beat fact.
29960
Not true unless an abnormal event causes it to be so.  What will happen is that over time the Earth's rotation will slow down till the year and the day are the same amount of time.  Just like the Moon is right now.
676309
I agree with Flive.  - The earth's rotational speed only comes into play if you are launching a spacecraft out of the atmosphere and into orbit.  That's why all manned space flights have been launched from west to east, gives them an extra 1,000 mph head start.  But within the atmosphere it makes no difference which direction you fly (assuming no wind).
625595
Prooving that the earth is not the center of the universe and that it rotates around the sun. Thoe simple as it seems today, this fact sparked the fire for future generations of wonderers to explore and ask question that were forebidin a few centuries ago.
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It should flow counterclockwise because of the Coriolis effect.\n\nHowever:\n\n>> But, the Coriolis force is very small, indeed. \n \nCompared to the rotations that one usually sees (tires on a travelling automobile, a compact disc playing music, or a draining sink), the rotation of the Earth is very small: only one rotation per day. The water in a sink might make a rotation in a few seconds and so have a rotation rate ten thousand times higher than that of the Earth. It should not be surprising, therefore, to learn that the Coriolis force is orders of magnitude smaller than any of the forces involved in these everyday spinning things. The Coriolis force is so small, that it plays no role in determining the direction of rotation of a draining sink anymore than it does the direction of a spinning CD. \n\nThe direction of rotation of a draining sink is determined by the way it was filled, or by vortices introduced while washing. The magnitude of these rotations may be small, but they are nevertheless gargantuan by comparison to the rotation of the Earth. I decided to include a picture of a draining sink, and the first one I tried in my house was found to drain clockwise (the opposite of what the silly assertions would have it do here in the northern hemisphere). This direction was determined entirely by the way the tap filled the sink. The direction of rotation of a draining toilet is determined by the way the water just under the rim is squirted into the bowl when it is flushed.<<\n\nI guess you'll just have to observe - I have made the water in kitchen sinks swirl the "wrong" way just for the heck of it, and it doesn't begin to immediately go the "right" way unless I act on it.
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Actually, No.\n\nIf our planet was anything but symetric about the access of rotation, it would develop a tremendous vibration or wobble.  This would lead either to localized forces that would eject people and things beyond the gravitational field, or would result in the complete breakup of the planet itself.\n\nSorry.
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It depends greatly on the shape of the tub or bowl and any currents in the water. There is a myth that in the northern hemisphere, water goes around the drain in a clockwise direction, because of the Coriolis Force (which affects how storms form due to the earth's rotation) - but generally our sinks and toilets and tubs aren't big enough to allow the Coriolis effect to exert as a factor. Check out the links:
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the rotation of the earth and the semisic activity
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Geosynchronous orbits are at an altitude of 40 thousand km.\n\n An observer in such an orbit will observe as follows. \n\nIf he makes one revolution per day (earth time) in his orbit around the earth in the direction of earth’s rotation, the earth will exhibit always its one side.\n\nIf he makes one revolution per day in the opposite direction of earth’s rotation, the earth exhibits its entire surface to the observer by rotating itself twice per day. Similarly, we on the Earth will view the observer two times for a period of 0.25 day moving from East to West.\n\n If he makes one revolution per day in the same direction of earth’s rotation, the earth exhibits its entire surface to the observer by rotating itself twice per day but in a direction opposite to the previous one. Similarly, we on the Earth will view the observer two times for a period of 0.25 day moving from West to East.\n\n Instead of speed I am referring revolution per day because it is directly proportional to the revolution per day when the distance from the center of earth is fixed.\n\nIn the so called lower Earth orbits (up to 1400 km) there are 8000 satellites which are about 10 cm long   orbiting now around our earth with various speed and various directions. Some of them revolve the earth once in one hour.\n\nI am answering for unasked questions because just to reveal the fact that there are objects revolving around our earth with various speeds (more than the earth’s rotational speed) in various directions.
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As Debster92 pointed out, there is no way to stop the Earth from spinning once it starts.\n\nAlso, and perhaps more importantly, there is absolutely no way to get it started again if it did stop.\n\nThe angular momentum imparted on the solar system as it coalesced out the primordial gas cloud is what causes all the planets to spin and rotate as they do today.  If one were to somehow stop a body from rotating, it would take tremendous energy to get it started again.
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Although the earth is rotating in the same direction the angle of incidence is the opposite of that in the northern hemisphere. as the earth rotates the angular momentum causes the water to spin. Think about wheels placed against the surface of the earth and angled so that their axles are pointing at the center of the planet as the earth rotates they will turn in opposite directions.
307040
the earth is spinning on a tilted axis (23.5 degrees), therefor sunlight is not equally dispersed, causing seasons... look up seasons on wikipedia and it will give an explanation i'm sure
371118
because the earth rotates on an axis