Why doesn’t it spin independently of me and I end up in another country or something? And if a spaceship watched earth from afar, at one point would it start spinning with earth and at what point can it observe the rotations of earth without being part of it?
In: Planetary Science
When you’re inside a train, the air around you doesn’t feel like it’s moving. If you’re inside the train and you jump, the train doesn’t leave you behind and you keep all the same momentum you had standing still inside the train. You can only tell how fast you are going by sticking your hand outside the train. This is what it’s like being inside the Earth’s atmosphere. The air is moving along with us.
Air resistance is relative. If you are moving at the same speed as all the air around you and in the same direction, it feels like standing still. The less similar your speed and direction, the more the air resists, the harder you need to push the air out of your way. Things mostly slow down from collision or propulsion. Gravity makes you collide with the ground, rockets use propulsion to land safely, in the case of air resistance you are colliding with countless air particles.
But when you fly your helicopter straight up and hover, you haven’t done anything for the air to resist because it is moving exactly the same as you horizontally. Everything around you is moving at the same speed as you.
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