How fast are we spinning around the sun

Earth turns on its own axis about once every 24 hours or, to be precise, every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. Related: What if Earth started spinning backward? Scientists know that by taking the distance Earth travels around the sun and dividing it by the length of time Earth takes to complete one orbit about days.

Ask an Astronomer explains the math: To calculate Earth's distance around the sun, all scientists need to do is to determine the circumference of a circle.

We know that the Earth is, on average, about 93 million miles That distance between the sun and Earth is the radius of the circle. Once the circumference the distance Earth travels around the sun in one orbit is calculated, its orbital speed can be determined. The solar system, which includes our sun and all of the objects that orbit it, is also moving; it's located within the Milky Way, which orbits around the galaxy's center. Scientists know that the Milky Way is orbiting a galactic center based on observations of other stars, said Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist at North Carolina State University.

If stars very far away seem to be moving, that's because the solar system is moving compared with the relative position of those far away stars.

To bring this concept back down to Earth, "If I start walking, I can tell that I'm moving because the buildings I pass by seem to be moving," from in front to behind me, Mack said. Cool, but you asked for your motion, which means we need to convert from angles to a velocity.

With the rotation of the Earth, you have almost the exact opposite problem. If your backyard happens to be 3 feet away from the North Pole, then your circle is only 6 feet across, and you have 24 hours to make it around. Unsurprisingly, your speed here is really slow.

The Earth is just over miles from surface to surface, if you tunnel through the middle, which means you have a lot farther to go in the same 24 hours. If we break this into units of miles per hour again, we get 66, mph. To combine your motion around the Earth with your motion around the sun, you should add the two together, taking into consideration the relative directions. Description of relations between Axial tilt or Obliquity , rotation axis, plane of orbit, celestial Earth is shown as viewed from the Sun; the orbit direction is counter-clockwise to the left.

The direction of your motion because the Earth is spinning 90 degrees from our axis of rotation is not lined up with the direction of the motion of the Earth around the Sun.

Our rotation is tipped sideways by 23 degrees. If you figure out the geometry, our 1, mph of motion at the equator is equivalent to going mph to the side, along our direction of motion. Our solar system is about 8, parsecs from the center of the galaxy - where one parsec is 19,,,, miles. This sort of enormous number gets inconvenient, so for any kind of science, I would prefer to calculate things in parsecs rather than in miles. The Sun, Earth, and the entire solar system also are in motion, orbiting the center of the Milky Way at a blazing miles a second.

Even at this great speed, though, our planetary neighborhood still takes about million years to make one complete orbit -- a testament to the vast size of our home galaxy. Dizzy yet? Well hold on. The Milky Way itself is moving through the vastness of intergalactic space.