How is it possible to achieve anywhere close to absolute zero if the earth is moving?

Question

I didn’t take physics past middle school so I don’t know if my understanding is correct. But my understanding is that temperature is proportional to the average kinetic energy of an object. So, since we’re zipping around the sun at 30 kilometers a second and everything on Earth must be moving at at least that speed, how is it that we can achieve within nanokelvins of absolute zero on Earth if the particle is still moving at 30 kilometers a second through space? Won’t the particle have to be completely at rest to achieve that?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Heat is a specific case of kinetic energy where molecules of a substance are vibrating around in a random way *relative to each other*. That last part is important. Something cooled down to absolute zero on earth would still be moving in tandem with the earth but all the molecules would be moving perfectly together and so would be completely stationary relative to each other.