why cant you see the world spin when you are in a plane?

Question

why cant you see the world spin when you are in a plane? Its probably a really obvious answer but this has bugged me since i was in school!

Answer 1

Because you are also moving, hun. Planes don't just hover! :)

Also, you can only see a small portion of the earth. in order to see it spin, you'd want to be farther out - say, in a space shuttle.

In essence, it's almost as if you are moving faster than the earth: if two objects are moving, and you are on the faster of the two, it looks like the slower one isn't moving. Test this out when you're in the car: next time you are going faster than somebody, watch -the car- instead of the surroundings. it looks like both of you are moving slower than you actually are, and it looks like the other car isn't moving at all or is going backwards.

Those are my thoughts on it... i'm sure there's a scientific explanation that's far better than that, but eh. Have fun with my two cents, ne? ^_^

Answer 2

Every day it can be seen that the sun moon planets and stars which are called celestial bodies appears to rotate from east to west.

This is due to the fact that the earth rotates or spins about an axis.

Now all that required is just to think that all these celestial objects are not moving and they are rest and we are moving from west to east. If we think with determination that they are at rest, we can easily perceive the spin of earth and for that one need not catch a plane.

In day time one can observe patiently the movement of the shadow of lengthy pole or shadow of a building taking into mind that the sun and shadow is not moving but the pole or building and we along with them are moving from west to east.

We can feel the pleasure of finding facts about the motion of earth.

Answer 3

The earth makes one complete revolution in one day. If you are in an airplane which is moving, how could you possible sense the earths rotation? There is also the problem of relative motion. If you hovered above the earth in such a way so that over the course of twenty minutes you noticed that your position has changed, how could you tell if you were really hovering or if you were not simply traveling across the earth. If you saw your location change you would just assume that you were traveling.

Answer 4

You, the plane, and the earth are spinning at the same time, within the Earth's atmosphere.

Answer 5

The plane is not locked in space for you to observe the earth. It is moving with the earth ± a small speed (its airspeed) relative to the surface.

Answer 6

as the earth is spinning, its gravatational force is attracting the plane as well, therefore the plane moves along with the rotation of the earth.

Answer 7

You can,its turning slowly in relation to your position tho.Even if you where on the moon it still appears to turn slow.