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Earth's rotation axis moves with respect to the fixed stars (inertial space); the components of this motion are precession and nutation. It also moves with respect to Earth's crust; this is called polar motion. Precession is a rotation of Earth's rotation axis, caused primarily by external torques from the gravity of the Sun, Moon and other bodies.
[nb 1] Earth's orbital speed averages 29.78 km/s (19 mi/s; 107,208 km/h; 66,616 mph), which is fast enough to cover the planet's diameter in 7 minutes and the distance to the Moon in 4 hours. [3] The point towards which the Earth in its solar orbit is directed at any given instant is known as the "apex of the Earth's way". [4] [5]
Earth rotates on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour. That’s the short answer, but it’s not the whole story.
The orbital speed of Earth averages about 29.78 km/s (107,200 km/h; 66,600 mph), which is fast enough to travel a distance equal to Earth's diameter, about 12,742 km (7,918 mi), in seven minutes, and the distance from Earth to the Moon, 384,400 km (238,900 mi), in about 3.5 hours.
Earth has reportedly reached its quickest spin speeds in the past half-century.
For the inner core to rotate despite gravitational coupling, it must be able to change shape, which places constraints on its viscosity. A 2023 study reported that the spin of the Earth's inner core has stopped spinning faster than the planet's surface around 2009 and likely is now rotating slower than it. [1]
Earth’s inner core, a red-hot ball of iron 1,800 miles below our feet, stopped spinning recently, and it may now be reversing directions, according to an analysis of seismic activity.
In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter (the combined center of mass) or, if one body is much more massive than the other bodies of the system combined, its speed relative to the center of mass of the most massive body.