What if someone were to tell you that at any given moment, you were traveling at speeds well in excess of the speed of sound? You might think they were crazy, given that – as best as you could tell – you were standing on solid ground, and not in the cockpit of a supersonic jet. Nevertheless, the statement is correct. At any given moment, we are all moving at a speed of about 1,674 kilometers an hour, thanks to the Earth’s rotation,
By definition, the Earth’s rotation is the amount of time that it takes to rotate once on its axis. This is, apparently, accomplished once a day – i.e. every 24 hours. However, there are actually two different kinds of rotation that need to be considered here. For one, there’s the amount of time it take for the Earth to turn once on its axis so that it returns to the same orientation compared to the rest of the Universe. Then there’s how long it takes for the Earth to turn so that the Sun returns to the same spot in the sky.