h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi

This may seem like a silly question, But I can't work it out and I can't find the answer anywhere.

If the earth is spinning around at say 1000 miles an hour, Then the stars in front of me. Should be behind me every couple of seconds and then a couple of seconds later, they should be back in front of me. But they don't move.

Surely the sky should be a blur

Can anyone explain this simply for me

Many thanks

It spins at a rate of one rotation per day. That means that in the beginning of the night, the stars will appear to be in the East and at the end of the night they will have moved across the sky to the West in the same manner that the sun does in daytime.

I don't know where the figure of 1000mph came from, but because the Earth is so large we do not notice the speed of its movement as much as we otherwise would.

HTH HANDA

That's absolutly correct. The Earth is spinning at 1,000 mph but since the Earth is around 24,000 miles in circumference this mean that it will take it 24 hours to go round once.
It's the same as the way you don't see the Sun move across the sky and although it takes the Moon 27.3 days to go round the Earth, it is 0.25 million miles away so you don't notice it move.