if the earth rotates, why can't we feel it move.   keenan, age 6?
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Hi Keenan!  Im Matt, an astronomy wizz.  If you look at most astronomy questions where I am, my answers are usually always the best of the best thanks to my power source, Blue Moons to Black holes By Melton Knocke.\n\nAnyway your question:\n\nEarth is moving fast, despite what people think.  It spins at about 1000 miles per hour, and goes 67 miles per hour around the sun.  You'd think that you would feel the spinning right?  WRONG!!!!  Sorry, cant help it.  Its so fun.  ANyway, the reason: All of the motions are almost completely constant. \n\nDon't get it?  Ever ride a train?  If you haven't, you can surely picture it as a car if you wish.  Notice how you feel abolutly no motion pretty much unless you speed up, slow down, or hit a bump?  Thats the same reason the earth never can be felt.  Its always going at a constant speed, never slowing unless it actually is hit with something dangerous enough to wipe out the human race.  \n\nThere is also another way in which we could indirectly feel the Earth's spin. Above we said that the Earth spinning is an example of almost constant motion. The reason we said "almost" is that the Earth's spin carries us around in a circle, not in a straight line. It's a very big circle, and it takes a long time to go around, but qualitatively it is the same thing that happens on a spinning amusement park ride, where it feels like you're being flung outward as the ride spins around. The spinning Earth is flinging us away from its surface a tiny bit, so that we weigh a little less than we would otherwise, simply because we are not being held down to the surface as tightly. \n\nAnyway, my answer is yours truly.  Enjoy!  Have fun.
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You say "when" like you think it is going to happen any minute.\n\nThe acceleration due to gravity does not depend on the rotation of the Earth, it only depends on the mass of the Earth and the distance from it.  No matter how fast you are traveling or the Earth is spinning, there will alwasy be a constant gravitational attraction between the Earth and some mass at a constant distance.\n\nHowever, the fact that the Earth is spinning has the effect of lowering the percieved influence of gravity in a way.\nGravity can be through of in this case as the centripetal force which is causing you travel in circular motion.\nWithout going into too much detail (and I fear that I am not explaining it clearly), the force of gravity can only cause so much of a centripetal acceleration, beyond that and you cannot continue in the same circular path.\n\nThere is a point where the force of gravity would not be enough to "hold you down" if the Earth was spinning fast enough.  You set your weight (weight = force of gravity) eqaul to the centripetal force (the force causing you to moving in circular motion), then you can solve for the tangential speed of the Earth's rotation which you would be "weightless".\nHowever, the force of gravity in and of itself is in no way effected by the Earth's rotation.\n\nI hope I explained it clearly enough, this topic lends itself to people using in correct terms like "centrifugal force" which is really not correct.
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Precession! The shape of Earth’s orbit becomes more or less oval (eccentricity), Earth wobbles as it spins (precession), and Earth's axis changes too (tilt). All these changes, over thousands of years, causes Earth's climate to change.
167554
It is highly unlikly that the earth will ever change the direction of rotation. A strong outside force must be present. But the rotation of the earth is slowing down over time due to the pull from the moon. dont worry if anything does change you will not be here to see it.
256767
I'm not sure I really understand your question.  Are you how fast a particular point on earth is moving?  If that is the case it's not an easy answer because it depends where you are on the planet.  If you are on one of the poles then there is very little rotational speed.  If you are on the equator then your velocity is much greater.  Think of it like a CD in a CD player.  Also you would need to factor in the speed of the earth as it travels around the sun sometimes spinning in the same direction the earth is traveling resulting in a greater total velocity and sometimes spinning in the opposite direction yielding a lower total velocity.  The final analogy would be to tie a CD player to a string and swing it in circles while the CD is playing.  The speed of a single point, other than the center, of the CD is constantly changing.  However, it's still not even that simple due to the earth's eliptical orbit and varied velocity.
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The Earth’s rotation axis is not perpendicular to the plane in which it orbits the Sun. It's offset by 23.5 degrees. This tilt, or obliquity, explains why we have seasons and why places above the Arctic Circle have 24-hour darkness in winter and constant sunlight in the summer.\n\nBut the angle is not constant – it is currently decreasing from a maximum of 24 degrees towards a minimum of 22.5 degrees. This variation goes in a 40,000-year cycle.
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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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We would never FEEL it rotate because it acts directly opposite to gravity. The only way we would feel it it if it CHANGED in velocity.
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The Earth's rotation began as the matter, that came together to produce our planet, gradually increased and compressed upon itself.\n\nHave you ever seen a figure skater when they go into a spin?  Notice they spin faster when they pull in their arms and legs.\n\nSame effect.\n\nGravity is actually a property of mass.  \n\nGreater mass = Stronger gravity
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The Earth rotates once in 24 hours, and its (equatorial) radius is 3,963 miles (6,378 km). As with the Moon, the rotational speed starts at zero at either geographic pole and increases as you head toward the equator, where it reaches its maximum of about 1038 mi/hr (1669 km/hr). At 45 degrees north or south latitude, the rotational speed is about 0.7 of this maximum speed.
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Let's just talk about Earth. The earth's diameter is 12756 km. Its circumference is pi x 12756 = 40074 km. The earth spins 1 round in 24 hours. That's 1700 km/h, or 472 m/s. If it rotates in an OPPOSITE direction, it's like the Earth is rotating at 944 km/s and suddenly stops. What happens? You fly through the air at 944 km/s. All the houses fly through the air at 944 km/s. Whole forests fly at 944 km/s. Even whole mountain ranges and mountain tips fly at 944 km/s. The ocean's waters fly backward at 944 km/s. Talk about a uber tsunami. I don't know what the friction of air against these object would do to them. Can anyone solve that? Even the Earth's crust might become detached with its outer mantle, I think. Lava breaks out everywhere, global earthquakes... In short: All hell breaks loose. Man, that's even worse than the Death Star. Superman actually does that to Earth in one of his movies. He's a major nut!
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Ask your son to turn around in a circle once per day.  That is the rate  of the earth spinning.   One rotation per day.  Did he get dizzy?  \n\nSpinning is angular speed or angular frequency( the rate it turns through an angle), not the speed, tangent to the circumference of the earth.\n\nThe earth spinning is improperly linked to 1000 mph.  The earth spins one time per day.  The surface velocity is 1000mph at the outer surface of the earth, but that is just like going straight at 1000mph.\n\nThe surface speed of the earth is undetectably with out a frame of reference.  Just as speeding in a car...without looking out the window, you don't know if you are moving that fast.  We only detect a change, acceleration.  The earth spins so slowly, we don't detect the angular frequency as being dizzy.
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The Earth is rotating around an axis (called its rotational axis). Some objects rotate about a horizontal axis, like a rolling log. Some objects, such as a skater, rotate about a vertical axis. The Earth's axis is tipped over about 23.5° from vertical.\n\nHow do we define up and down in space? What would "vertical" mean? For the Earth, we can think of vertical as straight up and down with respect to the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun (called the ecliptic).\n\nEarth's rotational axis points in the same direction relative to the stars, so that the North Pole points towards the star Polaris. Think of the Earth as a spinning top, tipped over to one side. Over very long time periods (thousands of years) the direction of Earth's axis slowly changes due to precession.\n\nThe Earth rotates around once in 24 hours - that's a rate of 1000 miles per hour!. The time it takes for the Earth to rotate completely around once is what we call a day. It's Earth's rotation that gives us night and day.\n\nThe combined effect of the Earth's tilt and its orbital motion result in the seasons
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There is no relative motion between us and the Earth. And contrary to what others have said already, that the Earth moves really slowly, well Im sorry, that is incorrect. The Earth actually moves incredibly fast - approximately 30 km/s relative to the Sun and the Galaxy.
1102459
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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The earth turns with respect to the motion of force which was placed upon it with in the vacuum of space, and also with respect to the vacuum of space there is no friction to slow it down, therefor it shall continue to spin forever if it's motion is uninterrupted, or unaltered by another matter energy object of aether large size, or fast speed impacting it with direct respect to the angle of the interaction.\n\nas for your second question the axis is the center point at which the spin turns, and is therefore recognized by us with respect to the earths motion spin as the axis, and if the motion and direction of spin were changed tomorrow to be perpendicular of that which it is today, then the new axis would be perceived tomorrow as existing at some point at which we recognize the equator today.
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The Earth rotates (spins around).  Sometimes a side is facing the Sun and is in daytime.  Sometimes it is not and is in nighttime.