at what speed does the earth roatate?

Answer 1

That depends on where on Earth you are standing. At the poles, the Earth hardly spins at all, but as you travel towards the equator, the rotational speed picks up. This makes sense -- as the circumference of a circle increases, a single point along it has to travel faster to complete a revolution in the same amount of time.

The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1,038 miles per hour. The atmosphere at the equator is also slightly thicker due to rotation, and you weigh slightly less. At mid-latitudes, the speed of the Earth's rotation decreases to 700 to 900 miles per hour.

If the Earth were to stop spinning suddenly, the atmosphere would still be zipping along nicely at around 1,000 miles an hour. As a result, everything not attached to bedrock would pretty much be scoured clean.

The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles. The Earth rotates in about 24 hours. Therefore, if you were to hang above the surface of the Earth at the equator without moving, you would see 25,000 miles pass by in 24 hours, at a speed of 25000/24 or just over 1000 miles per hour.

Multiply by cosine of your latitude to see how fast the Earth is rotating where you are.

Hope you get an A if you are doing a science project haha. Or hope you learned something :)

Answer 2

The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles. The Earth rotates in about 24 hours. Therefore, if you were to hang above the surface of the Earth at the equator without moving, you would see 25,000 miles pass by in 24 hours, at a speed of 25000/24 or just over 1000 miles per hour.

Earth is also moving around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour.That depends on where on Earth you are standing. At the poles, the Earth hardly spins at all, but as you travel towards the equator, the rotational speed picks up. This makes sense -- as the circumference of a circle increases, a single point along it has to travel faster to complete a revolution in the same amount of time.
The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1,038 miles per hour. The atmosphere at the equator is also slightly thicker due to rotation, and you weigh slightly less. At mid-latitudes, the speed of the Earth's rotation decreases to 700 to 900 miles per hour.

Answer 3

You Want it..you Got it...



Basic Answer
The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles. The Earth rotates in about 24 hours. Therefore, if you were to hang above the surface of the Earth at the equator without moving, you would see 25,000 miles pass by in 24 hours, at a speed of 25000/24 or just over 1000 miles per hour.

Multiply by cosine of your latitude to see how fast the Earth is rotating where you are.

Earth is also moving around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour.

Advanced Answer

If by "turning" you mean the rotation of the Earth about its axis (where axis just means the straight line between the North and South poles) it is quite easy to figure out how fast any part of the Earth's surface is moving.

The Earth rotates once in a few minutes under a day (23 hours 56 minutes 04. 09053 seconds). This is called the sidereal period (which means the period relative to stars). The sidereal period is not exactly equal to a day because by the time the Earth has rotated once, it has also moved a little in its orbit around the Sun, so it has to keep rotating for about another 4 minutes before the Sun seems to be back in the same place in the sky that it was in exactly a day before.

An object on the Earth's equator will travel once around the Earth's circumference (40,075.036 kilometers) each sidereal day. So if you divide that distance by the time taken, you will get the speed. An object at one of the poles has hardly any speed due to the Earth's rotation. (A spot on a rod one centimeter in circumference for example, stuck vertically in the ice exactly at a pole would have a speed of one centimeter per day!). The speed due to rotation at any other point on the Earth can be calculated by multiplying the speed at the equator by the cosine of the latitude of the point. (If you are not familiar with cosines, I wouldn't worry about that now, but if you can find a pocket calculator which has a cosine button you might like to try taking the cosine of your own latitude and multiplying that by the rotation speed at the equator to get your own current speed due to rotation!).

The Earth is doing a lot more than rotating, although that is certainly the motion we notice most, because day follows night as a result. We also orbit the Sun once a year. The circumference of the Earth's orbit is about 940 million kilometers, so if you divide that by the hours in a year you will get our orbital speed in kilometers per hour. We are also moving with the Sun around the center of our galaxy and moving with our galaxy as it drifts through intergalactic space!

Paul Butterworth
and David Palmer for the Ask an Astrophysicist Team

Answer 4

The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1,038 miles per hour. The atmosphere at the equator is also slightly thicker due to rotation, and you weigh slightly less. At mid-latitudes, the speed of the Earth's rotation decreases to 700 to 900 miles per hour.

If the Earth were to stop spinning suddenly, the atmosphere would still be zipping along nicely at around 1,000 miles an hour. As a result, everything not attached to bedrock would pretty much be scoured clean.

Answer 5

Basic answer:

The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles. The Earth rotates in about 24 hours. Therefore, if you were to hang above the surface of the Earth at the equator without moving, you would see 25,000 miles pass by in 24 hours, at a speed of 25000/24 or just over 1000 miles per hour.

Earth is also moving around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour.

(They also have an advanced answer)

Answer 6

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.

How 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).

Earth'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.

The 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.

The combined effect of the Earth's tilt and its orbital motion result in the seasons.

Answer 7

The earth hardly spins at all at the Poles.
There is increase rotation as the circumference of the earth increase.
The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1,038 miles per hour. The atmosphere at the equator is also slightly thicker due to rotation, and you weigh slightly less. At mid-latitudes, the speed of the Earth's rotation decreases to 700 to 900 miles per hour

Answer 8

The average rotation period of the Earth is called "sidereal day". Its value is

23 h 56 m 4.091 s
and describes the rotation with respect to the cosmic background of the stars. In contrast to this, the rotation with respect to the Sun is 24 hours, because we are revolving around the sun once per year. Per day the difference is
86 400 s / 365.25 = 236 seconds = 3 m 56 s (as can be seen above).

This must not be confused with the length of day (abbrev. LOD), which the IERS defines as the difference between the astronomically determined duration of the day (relative to the Sun) and 86,400 SI seconds.[1]

Answer 9

Given that the circumference of the Earth is 24,902 miles and that the Earth make one revolutiion in 24 hours then the Earth is rotating at a speed of 1037.58 miles per hour.

Answer 10

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.