the earth is rotating at the equator at 1,000 miles/hour. If a helicopter lifts off at the equator and hovers for 24 hours, will the earth spin beneath it? ( this is not a trick question it is either a yes or no answer )
199383
Good question! I think no because everything moves within the atmosphere. Such as 8 hour long airplanes. If they travel the opposite direction of the earth's rotation, it wouldn't just stay still over the same exact spot over the ocean if it traveled 1000mph. good question, but that's what i predict using prior knowledge. Plus, i think it's gravitational force that makes every object move at the same time along with the earth itself. It may have to do with Earth's magnetic field, i don't know.
457548
Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours or 15 degrees per hour that it goes through 0,5 degrees of rotation in two Minutes\n\nClick on the URL below for addition information concening the earth rotation. See Item 17\n\nhelios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_earth.html \n\n. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -\n\nThe diameter is 7926 Miles\n\nCircumference\n\nc = d π\n\nc = 7916(3.141592654)\n\nc = 24900.26337 miles\n\nClick on the URL below for additional informatio concerning the circumference of the earth\n\nwww.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/earth.html \n\n- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - \n\nSolving for earth rotation per degree in miles\n\n24900 ÷ 360 = 69.16666667\n\nThe earth  rotates 69.2 Miles for each degree of rotation. Rounded to one decimal point.\n\n- - - - - -s-
62084
300 million years ago the day was about 22 hrs long. Earths rotation is getting slower and the days will be getting longer. This is because of the tidal forces between the earth and the moon. Earths oceans are being pulled on by the moons gravity. But as the moon moves in its orbit the oceans cant follow in a nice bulge because of the continents. So the oceans form another gravitaional centre offset from the center of the earth. This out-of sync tug is whats making the moon move farther away from the earth. The same force is slowing the earhts rotation. The moon is moving away from the earth by a couple of cms/year. How much longer the day gets each year I cant remember. It´s in the neighbourhood of nanoseconds. A leap second was acutally added to 2005.
203726
Earth's magnetic field constantly fluctuates to some degree (it's weakened by about 10% since the 19th Century), but the majority of geophysicists see no hard evidence that the field is about to reverse like it's done in the past.\n\nEven should it reverse, the whole cycle takes thousands of years, and still would have little effect on our electrical power systems. Nor would planes fall from the sky, although reliance on magnetic compasses would have to be adjusted.\n\nGod should be spelled B-I-G B-A-N-G\nPBrax@netscape.com
665498
Neither, the axis it rotates on is a north-south axis. However, the earth is spinning west to east!\n\nPS I wish people wouldn't say it rotates left or right - its meaningless and incorrect. If you look at the Earth with the North Pole at the top it appears to rotate to the right, but if you look at the Earth with the South Pole at the top it appears to rotate to the left. Use east and west! It rotates to the east!
272144
From what i understand the earth will eventually leave the earth system altogether in a few hundred thousand years, this process is not however do to tidal drag. That force is responsible for slowing the rotation of the earth (and other planets) What most people don't understand is that the moon acts as a stabilizer for the earth. they degree of axial tilt would vary wildly. the equator may wind up as the north pole and go back again. planets without moons all experience this extreme wobble effect.
658175
Gravity is not caused by the earth's spin. Gravity is a property inherent in matter, caused by the earth's mass.\n\nCentrifugal force causes things to push away from the center of rotation. So the centrifugal force of the earth's spin actually reduces the force of gravity -- but just a little, because gravity is much stronger than the centrifugal force.\n\nBut if you have a very sensitive detector, you can measure that the force of gravity at the North Pole is a bit greater than at the Equator, because there is no centrifugal force there.
558753
It keeps spinning because of its angular momentum. The same reason why a top keeps spinning, until friction slows it down. But since the Earth is floating in space, there is no friction and it keeps spinning indefinitely.\n\nIt has not been spinning "since the Big Bang" because the Earth has not existed for that long. The Big Bang was about 14 billion years ago. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.\n\nAlso, the speed of rotation is not constant. The tidal effect of the moon and sun are very gradually slowing the Earth down, making the length of the day very very slightly longer all the time. But it will take billions of years for a significant change in day length.\n\nIf the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, everything on the surface, especially at the lower latitudes, would be destroyed. The Equator is traveling at about 1,000 miles per hour (1600 km/h) and if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning the chaos would be incredible. But you don't have to worry about that because there is nothing that could possibly do that.
36746
As we are not, the Earth is spinning at a pretty constant speed (1 rotation / day).  Based on the position we are on the Earth, we are traveling around at different speeds, the closer one is to the equater, the faster one is traveling.\nAt the same time, the force of gavity is pulling us toward the center of the Earth, this force acts as the centripetal force (NOT to be confused with the ficticious centrifugal force) that keeps us in circular motion.\n\nIf the Earth's rotation we to increase, the force needed to keep up down on the ground would need to increase too.  However, the force (gravity) is only so strong, it can only pull up down by some much.  So it one were to increase the spin of the Earth enough, it is possible for the centripetal acceleration to equal the gravitational acceleration....therefore we would be weightless.\n\nBut now the question is, what happens is we further increase the Earth's rotation past this point of weightlessness?\nIf you spin the Earth faster, our weight would not be enough to keep us in the circular motion we are currently in, so it would have the effect of seeminly lifting up off the ground.  HOWEVER, we would not fly up into space.  The moment we leave the ground, the centripetal acceleration needed is reduced (a = v^2 / r, when r increases, a decreases).  If we could maintain a constant speed once we leave the ground, we would eventually lift up enough to that we get to a height so that the centripetal acceleration equals the gravitational acceleration again and we would hover at that height.
4454
****Edit based on further details from asker *****\nSailing around the world is sailing within the sperhical confines of our planet.  If there were no athmosphere, or gravity, then we would simply fall off the earth.  However, as gravity is pushing us down, and is affecting the winds, ect within the athmosphere, we are bound to the surface of the water.  \n\nEven though a sphere is included in the define of spheroid, it is a type of spheroid, not the inclusive answer.  The fact that gravity pushes down on us from all around, mainly because the earth is spinning so fast, and other more complicated reasons; the sphereoid holds whatever is on it's surface down to adhere to the confines and shape of such a surface.\n\nEven if the world were flat, or a flattned sphereoid, we woudln't fall off, instead, we'd loop around to the otherside becasue gravity wouldn't allow us to actually 'drop' off the side of the cliff.  The inverse gravity on the other side of the plane would pull us to it's confine, or surface.\n\nSo, there's your answer.  Sorry i didn't get it more clear the first time.\n\nMathamatically you can say that gravity pushes us from all around using a tangent direction.  That means that no matter the point you are on this earth, gravity is pushing down on you within the same confines as any other like region.  As to falling off the earth, if gravity didn't exist, we wouldn't 'fall' exactly; we would more likely be thrown or float off the earth (thrown if the world is spinning).\n\n****End Edit.******\n\nThe world indeed is a sphere, but it is not a perfect sphere, due to the rotation of the earth around it's axis, as well as the rotation of the earth around the sun (central axis), the spinning and speed of the planet make it more of a spehere that jiggles, sometimes squeezed, and sometimes elongated.  But, not by much :) Just a bit :)
444942
B is wrong.  Jupiter spins once every 9 hours and 55 minutes while earth spins once every 24.
295272
Hint: The Earth revolves 7.5 degrees every 30 minutes.
407642
Yup, Earth's rotation rate is slowing down.  You've always wished for more hours in the day, right?  Well, it's happening!  Of course, we won't notice a difference in our lifetimes.  It should be noted, that our speed around the Sun isn't changing, just our spin rate - as our day becomes longer, there will be fewer days in one year.\n\nThis is actually tied in to your previous question - the same thing that slows down Earth's rotation also causes the Moon to get farther and farther away from us.  The tidal force from the Moon on Earth creates tidal bulges on Earth.  Earth essentially rotates underneath the tidal bulges.  There's friction there, so there's a loss in energy.  This is manifested by a slower rotation rate for Earth (the same thing happened to the Moon long ago, which is why it always keeps one side facing Earth).\n\nThe Sun fuses hydrogen into helium in its core to produce energy via E = mc^2, so the Sun is converting some of its mass into energy.  Also the Sun loses some of its mass to the solar wind.  So technically the Sun is becoming less massive as time goes on, so its gravitational force must weaken.  However, the fraction of mass the Sun loses is so small that we can ignore it.  When the Sun dies and sheds its outer layers, then there will be a significant mass loss, but not until then.
293265
I assume you are wondering if the Earth's rotation will come into play here.  \n\nThe answer is yes.  This is the same as asking if a ball thrown in an airplane will land back in the person's hand.  Why is that so?  Everything in the plane is moving at the same speed, even the air molecules inside the cabin.  So, when the ball is thrown up, since it had the plane's speed before it was thrown, it will have that speed while going in the air, and since the air molecules are trucking along with everything else, they won't hinder the ball's motion.  \n\nIf you were to be able to watch the ball be thrown from outside the cabin, you would see the ball follow a curved parabolic path, where everyone in the cabin would see it go straight up and straight down.  You would see that curved path, because of the ball's horizontal motion due to the plane's speed.  Everyone inside wouldn't not see that, because they too are traveling with that same horizontal motion.\n\nSame thing applies here.  You share the same tangential speed as the Earth's surface, and so do all of the air molecules.  If you were able to jump for that long of time, you and everyone else around you would see you go straight up and straight down.  However, if you were being watched from space, you would follow a parabolic curve because of your tangential motion.
11666
Hmm. I think air would not flow as well. I would guess the atmosphere would stay hovering relative to each plane (6 of them), and perhaps intersect at the corners.\n\nEach side of the earth would have varying surface temperatures, unevenly distributed, which would make the air dramatically different temperatures. This would cause the air to move, possibly faster so it could be quite windy.\n\nHee hee what a weird question, I like it :-)
615490
I don't think anyone has done the math to figure out how quickly it would happen but with out the moon the Earth's rotation on it's axis would not be stable where it is now.  If that got out of wack we would have some serious weather problems.  It's the tilt of the Earth not the distance from the sun that makes the difference between summer and winter.  So if that wobble that has the the northern hemisphere facing the sun in the summer and leaning away at 23 some degrees in the winter was screwed up we'd probably all die.  There's a good move called, odly enough< If we Had no Moon.  It's from the discovery channel, and you can buy it or just check their TV schedule, it comes on once or twice a year.
75471
Air inside the car is travelling at the same speed as the car. So for a fly, the car is not moving.\n\nThe Earths rotates at a speed of 1000 miles/h at the equator. If you jump why don't you fall miles away? The answer is the same, the Earth is the car and you are the fly.