TI-103Time17th c.

You are moving thirty kilometres a second

Earth orbits the sun at about 29.8 kilometres per second. Sitting still is a description of the chair, not of the ride.

Established2 min read

The orbital speed follows from the size of the orbit and the length of the year. Two pi times one astronomical unit, divided by one year, is 29.8 km/s. Galileo’s relativity is why the coffee does not fly off the desk: the laws in a uniformly moving room are the laws in a room at rest.

Add the equator’s spin, about 0.5 km/s, and the sun’s motion around the galaxy, about 230 km/s, and ‘at rest’ is a choice of reference. None of these speeds is near light. All of them are faster than anything you will drive.

Caveats

  • 29.8 km/s is the average. The orbit is slightly elliptical, so the speed breathes.

Sources

  1. 1Meeus J.. Astronomical Algorithms. Willmann-Bell, 1998.

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