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The tangential speed of Earth's rotation at a point on Earth can be approximated by multiplying the speed at the equator by the cosine of the latitude. [42] For example, the Kennedy Space Center is located at latitude 28.59° N, which yields a speed of: cos(28.59°) × 1,674.4 km/h = 1,470.2 km/h.
The presence of the Moon (which has about 1/81 the mass of Earth), is slowing Earth's rotation and extending the day by a little under 2 milliseconds every 100 years. Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon) and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. Earth).
[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 ] From a vantage point above the north pole of either the Sun or Earth, Earth would appear to revolve in a counterclockwise direction around the Sun.
Day length fluctuations. The length of the day (LOD), which has increased over the long term of Earth's history due to tidal effects, is also subject to fluctuations on a shorter scale of time. Exact measurements of time by atomic clocks and satellite laser ranging have revealed that the LOD is subject to a number of different changes.
The Coriolis frequency ƒ, also called the Coriolis parameter or Coriolis coefficient, [1] is equal to twice the rotation rate Ω of the Earth multiplied by the sine of the latitude . The rotation rate of the Earth (Ω = 7.2921 × 10 −5 rad/s) can be calculated as 2 π / T radians per second, where T is the rotation period of the Earth which ...
Axial precession is the trend in the direction of the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the fixed stars, with a period of about 25,700 years. Also known as the precession of the equinoxes, this motion means that eventually Polaris will no longer be the north pole star .
The Earth's rotation rate is still slowing down, though gradually, by about two thousandths of a second per rotation every 100 years. [1] Estimates of how fast the Earth was rotating in the past vary, because it is not known exactly how the moon was formed. Estimates of the Earth's rotation 500 million years ago are around 20 modern hours per ...
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.