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
>Why doesn’t it spin independently of me and I end up in another country or something?
Because you took off from a helicopter that was sitting on the ground. It already was moving with the ground, and it doesn’t lose that speed just because it takes off. It’s the same reason a ball doesn’t just shoot off at hundreds of miles per hour when you toss it up.
>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?
If it’s a spaceship…it can do either (assuming it has enough fuel). It just depends on what the crew wants to do. There are geosynchronous orbits, where the spaceship will stay above the same spot on the Earth indefinitely, but you can also spin in the opposite direction, or whatever way you want. An alien spaceship from far away wouldn’t be dragged along with Earth’s rotation. The crew would just pick how they want to move.
Latest Answers