How fast does the Earth spin?

Question

How fast does the Earth spin? If Earth spunned at 10,000 RPM per second, what would happen to its inhabitants? Would they be thrown off in space?

I'm sorry, should have been more specific with the question. Yes I know it spins one Revolution per day...... But how fast is that in terms of miles?

Answer 1

How fast does the Earth rotate?

In round numbers the Earth is 25,000 miles around the equator, so 25,000 miles in 24 hours is 1,042 MPH.
But 1 foot from the pole, the distance around the earth is only 2*1*PI=6.28 feet which is 6.28/5280 or 0.00119 miles. That distance in 24 hours is 0.00005 MPH. At any latitude, the distance around the Earth is 25,000*cos(latitude). For example, at 30 degrees latitude the circumference is 25,000*cos(30)=25,000*0.866 or 21,651 miles. That distance in 24 hours is 902 MPH.

If the Earth rotated at 10,000 PRM, not only would we all be thrown off, but the Earth would tear itself apart. That is REALLY fast.

Answer 2

The Earth spins at 7.292115 x 10^-5 rad/sec.

On the equator a person has a linear speed of v=rw where s is your speed, r the radius (6378 km) and w your angular velocity (7.292 x 10^-5 rad/sec). That comes to 465 m/sec.

Your centripetal acceleration is v^2/r. In this case about 3.39 x 10^-2 meters/sec^2.

The Earth's gravity accelerates you towards the Earth at 9.8 meters/sec^2.

In other words, gravitational acceleration is stronger than your centripetal acceleration, even on the equator.

If the Earth revovled 10000 rpm, that would be 2 PI rad/rev * 10,000 revs * 1 min/60 sec = 1,047 rad/sec.

On the equator, your linear speed would be 6.68 x 10^ 9 meters/sec. Your centripetal acceleration would be 6.99 x 10^12 meters/sec^2. That's about 700 billion times stronger than your gravitational acceleration. You'd be flung out into space in an instant.

If you were located on the North or South Pole, you would experience 0 centripetal acceleration, since you're standing on the Earth's rotational axis.

If you were located about 7.5 meters (about 25 feet) away from one of the poles, your centripetal acceleration would equal gravitational acceleration and you'd feel weightless. Edit: When I think about it, this wouldn't be true. That close to the poles, gravitational attraction is directly down while centripetal acceleration would be virtually horizontal. The forces would have to be exactly opposite each other to make you feel weightless.

Edit: There's 1.609 meters in a mile and 3600 seconds in an hour, so 465 meters/sec converts to about 1,040 mph at the equator. You have to multiply by the cosine of your latitude to get your personal speed. At 45 degrees latitude (North or South, it doesn't matter), your speed would be about 735 mph. At the pole, it would be 0 mph.

Answer 3

If the Earth spins one revolution per day and the circumference around the Earth at the equator is 24,902 miles then the Earth is spinning at at speed of 24,902 miles per hour.

Answer 4

The Earth rotates 360 degrees in 23 hours 56 minutes (aka a 24 hour day). We arent thrown off because of the gravity.

Answer 5

The surface speed due to rotation depends on where you are.

At the poles, it is zero - you just turn round on the spot once a day.

At the equator it is roughly 1,000mph because the Earth is roughly 24,000 miles round its equator.

This means that a wind blowing from the north pole to the equator has to speed up to 1000mph, and this requires a force. This is the origin of the Coriolus force, and is why wind systems go in circles (and why we get hurricanes).

Answer 6

it spins at the rate of 1 revolution per 24 hours

Answer 7

If I remembered correctly from my high school physics class, it spins at around 1600km/h (convert to miles per hour yourself). Since the force of gravity has been around since the earth has, we're all used to the spinning.

Answer 8

About 900 mph. Remember this song.

http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/astro/music/Galaxy_Song.html

Lyrics:

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

(Animated calliope interlude)

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Answer 9

um your question is really bad. .... "10,000 RPM per second" rpm mean revolutions per minute but yes if the earth spun faster or slower (imediate change) we would be thrown around, however if the change was gradule we would not feel the effects

Answer 10

One revolution per day.