how fast does earth travel in space?

Question

how fast does earth travel in space, not around itself or the sun

Answer 1

The sun's orbital speed in the galaxy is 217 km/s, equivalent to one light-year every 1,400 years, and one AU every 8 days.

And rather like Mary and her little lamb, everywhere that Sol does go, the earth is sure to follow

The orbit takes about 225 million years and the Sun has completed about 21 such orbits during its 4.5 billion year life.

Or as Eric Idle once sung...

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.

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.

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!

I'm thinking that should do you:-)

Answer 3

The Earth travels around the Sun at 18.55 miles per second.

The Sun travels around the center of the Milky Way galaxy at 487,383 mph or 135 miles per second. It takes 225 million years to make one circumference of the galaxy. The Sun is 4.6 billion years old, so it has made the trip 20.5 times.

Think about THAT the next time you're late to work.

Answer 4

Excluding Earths Rotation and orbit around the Sun, the earth orbits around the Milky way galaxy at around 135 miles per second
or 486,000 mph...
So I suppose the earth travels through space at 486,000 mph...

Answer 5

First of all earth doesn't travel through space on those terms, and second it doesn't travel around itself it rotates.

Answer 6

Trick question. Please define first whether you are talking about on the Information Super highway or in a parking lot where the limit is much slower.

Answer 7

About 18.5 miles per SECOND

Answer 8

65mph, except in open areas where 75mph is legal

Answer 9

67100 miles (108000 kilometers) per hour.