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 helicopter is on the ground it’s moving with the Earth, so is the air that is all around you otherwise there would be such strong winds that would blow everything away (if the whole atmosphere wasn’t moving with the Earth).
So when you fly up with the helicopter you are just moving in air that is already moving with the Earth.
Same goes for rocket ships. When they launch, at the moment of lift off they are still moving with the Earth and the atmosphere. Then depending on their direction (once they lift off and tilt a little) they start either increasing or decreasing their speed relative to the Earth rotation.
Once rocket is in space it’s still being affected by the Earths spin, only by flying in the opposite direction of the Earth spin they can eventually become so fast that it looks like it’s doing one rotation around the Earth in 24 hours. That is when it’s speed relative to the Earth’s spin would be 0.
ISS (international space station) witnesses 16 sunrises and sunsets in 24h period because they orbit the Earth every 90 minutes. That is how fast the ISS has to move to stay in relatively stable orbit as to not fall down into Earth’s atmosphere or fly off into space.
Once you start to observe things in relations one to another whole new world opens up to you and you start to learn a lot of new thing and the amazement never stops.
Latest Answers