#A day in space ball boy how to

In other words, you don't even notice it, although you will weigh slightly less at the equator than at the poles. (This latter motion is called centripetal acceleration.) At its strongest point, which is at the equator, centripetal acceleration only counteracts Earth's gravity by about 0.3 percent. There is no chance that you'll be flung off to space right now, because the Earth's gravity is so strong compared to its spinning motion. What would happen if Earth stopped spinning? The two are rushing toward each other at about 70 miles per second (112 km per second).Įverything in the universe is, therefore, in motion. In about 4 billion years, the Milky Way will collide with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. The Milky Way, too, moves in space relative to other galaxies. Even at this rapid speed, the solar system would take about 230 million years to travel all the way around the Milky Way. The sun and the solar system appear to be moving at 200 kilometers per second, or at an average speed of 448,000 mph (720,000 km/h). We are thought to be about halfway out from the center, according to Stanford University. The sun is about 25,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy, and the Milky Way is at least 100,000 light-years across. The sun has an orbit of its own in the Milky Way. Related: How Fast does Light Travel? How do the sun and galaxy move? So, Earth travels about 1.6 million miles (2.6 million km) a day, or 66,627 mph (107,226 km/h). Since speed is equal to the distance traveled over the time taken, Earth's speed is calculated by dividing 584 million miles (940 million km) by 365.25 days and dividing that result by 24 hours to get miles per hour or km per hour. So in one year, Earth travels about 584 million miles (940 million km). The circumference of a circle is equal to 2 x π x r. The distance from Earth to the sun - called an astronomical unit- is 92,955,807 miles (149,597,870 kilometers), according to the International Astronomers Union. So, Earth's orbit is the circumference of a circle. The orbit is an ellipse, but to make the math simpler, let's say it's a circle. Earth takes about 365 days to orbit the sun. We can calculate that with basic geometry.įirst, we have to figure out how far Earth travels.

Our orbital speed around the sun is about 67,000 mph (107,000 km/h), according to Cornell. How fast does Earth orbit the sun?Įarth's spin, of course, is not the only motion we have in space. By doing so and launching in the same direction as Earth's spin, rockets get a speed boost to help them fly into space. That's why cargo missions to the International Space Station, for example, launch from Florida. If they're sending humans to the International Space Station, for example, the preferred location to do so is close to the equator. Space agencies love to take advantage of Earth's spin. By the time you get to the North or South poles, your spin is very slow indeed - it takes an entire day to spin in place.

That speed decreases more as you go farther north or south. The cosine of 45 is 0.707, so the spin speed at 45 degrees is roughly 0.707 x 1037 = 733 mph (1,180 km/h).

#A day in space ball boy how to

A good scientific calculator should have a cosine function available if you don't know how to calculate it. If we move halfway up the globe to 45 degrees in latitude (either north or south), you calculate the speed by using the cosine (a trigonometric function) of the latitude. You won't be moving quite as fast at other latitudes, however. Related: Check out some stunning images of Earth from space This produces a speed at the equator of about 1,037 mph (1,670 km/h). (This area is also called the equator.) If you estimate that a day is 24 hours long, you divide the circumference by the length of the day.

The circumference (distance around the largest part of the Earth) is roughly 24,898 miles (40,070 kilometers), according to NASA.

With a bit of simple calculation, using parallax we can also figure out the distance to that star.Įarth's spin is constant, but the speed depends on what latitude you are located at. We see the star from different vantage points. If we look at a star (located relatively close to us) in the summer and look at it again in the winter, its apparent position in the sky changes because we are at different points in our orbit. It takes about 365 days for us to orbit the sun. The same thing happens on Earth when we look at stars. That's because your left and right eyes are looking at the finger with slightly different angles. Then close your right eye, and look at the finger with your left. Look at it with your left eye only, closing your right eye. For a simple example of parallax, hold up your index finger in front of your face at arm's length. Another reason that humans started to realize that we might not be the center of the universe came from looking at parallax, or apparent change in the position of the stars with respect to each other.