The Earth is constantly in motion, rotating around the Sun and around its own axis. This movement and the constant tilt of the Earth's axis (23.5°) determines many of the effects that we observe as normal phenomena: night and day (due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis), the change of seasons (due to the tilt of the Earth's axis), and different climate in different areas. Globes can be rotated and their axis is tilted like the Earth’s axis (23.5°), so with the help of a globe you can trace the movement of the Earth around its axis quite accurately, and with the help of the Earth-Sun system you can trace the movement of the Earth around the Sun.

Rotation of the Earth around its axis

The Earth rotates on its own axis from west to east (counterclockwise when viewed from the North Pole). It takes the Earth 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds to complete one full revolution on its own axis. Day and night are caused by the rotation of the Earth. The angular speed of the Earth's rotation around its axis, or the angle through which any point on the Earth's surface rotates, is the same. It is 15 degrees in one hour. But the linear speed of rotation anywhere at the equator is approximately 1,669 kilometers per hour (464 m/s), decreasing to zero at the poles. For example, the rotation speed at latitude 30° is 1445 km/h (400 m/s).
We do not notice the rotation of the Earth for the simple reason that in parallel and simultaneously with us all objects around us move at the same speed and there are no “relative” movements of objects around us. If, for example, a ship moves uniformly, without acceleration or braking, through the sea in calm weather without waves on the surface of the water, we will not feel at all how such a ship is moving if we are in a cabin without a porthole, since all objects inside the cabin will be move parallel with us and the ship.

Movement of the Earth around the Sun

While the Earth rotates on its own axis, it also rotates around the Sun from west to east counterclockwise when viewed from the north pole. The earth needs one sidereal year(about 365.2564 days) to complete one full revolution around the Sun. The path of the Earth around the Sun is called the Earth's orbit and this orbit is not perfectly round. The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is approximately 150 million kilometers, and this distance varies up to 5 million kilometers, forming a small oval orbit (ellipse). The point in the Earth's orbit closest to the Sun is called Perihelion. The earth passes this point in early January. The point of the Earth's orbit farthest from the Sun is called Aphelion. The earth passes this point in early July.
Since our Earth moves around the Sun along an elliptical path, the speed along the orbit changes. In July, the speed is minimal (29.27 km/sec) and after passing aphelion (upper red dot in the animation) it begins to accelerate, and in January the speed is maximum (30.27 km/sec) and begins to slow down after passing perihelion (lower red dot ).
While the Earth makes one revolution around the Sun, it covers a distance equal to 942 million kilometers in 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.5 seconds, that is, we rush along with the Earth around the Sun at an average speed of 30 km per second (or 107,460 km per hour), and at the same time the Earth rotates around its own axis once every 24 hours (365 times per year).
In fact, if we consider the movement of the Earth more scrupulously, it is much more complex, since the Earth is influenced by various factors: the rotation of the Moon around the Earth, the attraction of other planets and stars.

“Our planet rotates” - such a statement has long become obvious. Moreover, this rotation is complex, probably even more complex than one can imagine and has not been fully explored by man, because the boundaries of the universe are not yet known, and no one can say what our entire planet ultimately revolves around. world. However, any rotation, like any movement, is a relative thing, and from Earth it seems to us that it is not us, but the whole world that revolves around us, which is why it took so many centuries for man to realize the rotation of his own planet. And what now seems obvious was actually very, very difficult: to look at your world from the outside, especially when it seems that it is the center of the universe. Let's try to figure out how our planet rotates and what consequences arise from this.

Rotation around its axis

The earth rotates on its axis and makes a full revolution in 24 hours. From our side - on Earth - we observe the movement of the sky, the Sun, planets and stars. The sky rotates from east to west, so the Sun and planets rise in the east and set in the west. The main celestial body for us, of course, is the Sun. The rotation of the Earth around its axis causes the Sun to rise above the horizon every day and fall below it every night. Actually, this is the reason that day and night follow each other. Great value for our planet the Moon also has. The Moon shines with light reflected from the Sun, so the change of day and night cannot depend on it, however, the Moon is a very massive celestial object, so it is capable of attracting the liquid shell of the Earth to itself, slightly deforming it. By cosmic standards, this attraction is insignificant, but by ours, it is quite noticeable. Twice a day we observe the high tide and twice a day the low tide. Tides are observed on the part of the planet above which the Moon is located, as well as on the opposite side from it. Low tides are shifted relative to high tides by 90°. The Moon makes a full revolution around the Earth in a month (hence the name of the partial moon in the sky), during the same time it makes a full revolution around its axis, so we always see only one side of the Moon. Who knows, if the Moon rotated in our sky, perhaps people would have guessed about the rotation of their planet much earlier.
Conclusions: the rotation of the Earth around its axis leads to the change of day and night, the occurrence of ebbs and flows.

Rotation around the Sun

It was only in the 17th century that the heliocentric model of the world (the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun) finally replaced the geocentric model (the Sun and the planets revolve around the Earth). The development of astronomy and the observation of planets has made it no longer possible to claim that the world revolves around the Earth. Now it is obvious to everyone that our planet revolves around the Sun in approximately 365.25 days. Unfortunately, this is not very convenient, and this date cannot be rounded, otherwise an error of one day will accumulate over 4 years. By the way, this feature created a lot of problems for the ancient peoples, because drawing up a calendar due to the uneven number of days in the year turned into confusion. This even affected Ancient Rome, there was a proverb that, loosely interpreted, meant that the Romans always achieve great victories, but they do not know exactly on what day it happened. He carried out the necessary calendar reform in 45 BC. Julius Caesar. It is in his honor that we still call the seventh month of the year “July.” In the Julian calendar, every 4th year is a leap year, that is, it is 366 days - February 29 is added. However, this system did not turn out to be accurate enough, since over time, errors began to accumulate in it. The year is actually 11 minutes shorter in length, which becomes significant over the centuries. In about 128 years Julian calendar accumulates an error of 1 day. Because of this, we had to introduce a new one - Gregorian calendar(it was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII). We still use this calendar today. In it, not all years that are divisible by 4 are considered leap years. Years that are divisible by 100 are leap years only if they are divisible by 400. But even this calendar is not perfect; it will accumulate an error of 1 day over 10,000 years. True, for now we are satisfied with such an error. However, this problem can be solved purely technically by introducing it every 10 thousand years on February 30; this, however, does not threaten us.
So, the Earth revolves around the Sun in one year, while the seasons change on it. The reason for this is the tilt of the earth's axis. The axis of rotation of our planet (and this is what we see on the globe) is inclined at an angle of 23.5°. At the same time, she always “looks” at one point in the sky, next to which is the North Star, creating the impression that celestial sphere rotates around this point. The tilt of the earth's axis leads to the fact that for half a year the earth is tilted towards the Sun by the Northern Hemisphere, and for half a year it is turned away by the Northern Hemisphere and turned towards the Southern Hemisphere. This leads to the fact that the height of the Sun above the horizon changes from month to month - in winter it rises low, we receive little heat, and it becomes cold. But on the opposite hemisphere at this moment it is summer - it is turned towards the Sun, six months later summer comes here. The sun rises higher and higher above the horizon and warms up our half of the Earth, however, winter is coming on the other side of the planet. (see figure; source: http://www.rgo.ru/2011/01/kogda-prixodit-osen/)
I would like to note that we consider the tilt of the earth’s axis to be constant, and by the standards of human life this is true, although not entirely. The fact is that the North Pole of the world in the sky (where the North Star is now) is slowly moving. This phenomenon is called pole precession. The same process is observed in a spinning top, which we begin to clearly see when the top begins to stop. Despite the rapid rotation, its handle begins to describe circles, slowly changing the direction of the inclination of its axis. Of course, the Earth is not a top and a strict parallel cannot be drawn, but the process is similar, so in a few thousand years the North Star will no longer be at the “celestial pole”. However, during a lifetime a person will not be able to observe such processes. As well as a change in the tilt of the earth's axis. Obviously, over the 4.5 billion years of existence, the tilt of our planet has changed, which has had serious consequences for the entire planet, but the change in the tilt of the axis can occur no faster than 1° over hundreds of thousands of years! Some pseudoscientific films tell us about the possibility of an almost instantaneous shift geographic poles, but according to the laws of nature this physically cannot happen.
Conclusion: The rotation of the Earth around the Sun leads to a change in seasons, thanks to the constant tilt of the Earth's axis of 23.5°

Rotation around the center of the galaxy

The Earth and the entire solar system are located in a galaxy we call the Milky Way. It received this name because what is our Galaxy in the clear sky outside the city on a moonless night looks like a light elongated strip. To the ancients, it resembled milk spilled across the sky, which is actually millions of stars in our galaxy. The galaxy actually has a spiral shape and should be similar to our nearest neighbor - the Andromeda galaxy (pictured). Unfortunately, we cannot yet look at our own galaxy from the outside, but modern calculations and observations show that our system is rather closer to the edge Milky Way in one of his sleeves. The arms of a spiral galaxy slowly rotate around its center, and we rotate with them. The Earth and the entire solar system complete a revolution around the center of the galaxy in 225-250 million years. Unfortunately, too little is known about the consequences of this rotation, since the conscious life of humanity on Earth is measured in thousands of years, and serious observations have been carried out for only a few centuries, however, the processes occurring in the galaxy must also somehow influence the life of our planet, but this remains to be seen.

Earth performs not only daily rotational movement around an axis (more details: ), and also has a translational movement in its orbit around the Sun, together with other planets, which we, however, do not notice.

Earth around the sun

It seems to us that the Earth is in a stationary state, and the Sun revolves around it.

To visualize it most clearly, imagine that your ship dropped anchor and entered a roadstead near some port city. You lowered the boat and went to the mouth of a small river. The weather is clear and calm. The boat is rushing along the surface of the water, and it seems that the banks of the river are quickly running towards you, and the boat is standing motionless.

This is how people used to consider the Earth to be motionless when observing the apparent movement of the Sun along the zodiacal constellations.

Total in solar system nine large ones are known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Planets do not have their own light, and if sometimes we see them in the form of very bright stars, it is because they reflect the light of the Sun falling on them.

Planets move across the sky between stars, which is why they are called planets, that is, “wandering luminaries.”

Periods of planetary rotation around the Sun

Speeds and periods of planetary rotation around the Sun vary depending on their distance from the Sun. Planets closer to the Sun rotate at higher speeds and make their way around it in much shorter periods of time than planets located further from the Sun.

So, for example, Mercury- the planet closest to the Sun - makes its way around the Sun in only 88 days. Pluto, which is located at the farthest distance from the Sun compared to all other planets known to us, is at 249 earth years.

The paths the planets take around the Sun

The paths the planets take around the Sun, they are called orbits. The orbits of the planets are ellipses, or elongated circles. This was first proven by a brilliant mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler.

The degree of elongation of planetary orbits varies and is relatively small. The orbits of Mercury and Pluto are the most elongated. As for the earth's orbit, we can say that it is almost no different from a circle.

An ellipse is not difficult to draw. Take a short length of thread and tie its ends together. Let's put this thread on two pins stuck into a sheet of paper lying tightly on the table, one from the other at a distance slightly less than half of the entire thread.

Stretch the thread with a pencil and, keeping it in this position, draw it along a sheet of paper lying on the table. The result will be an ellipse.

The points where pins are inserted are called tricks. The Sun is located at one of the foci of the ellipses of the orbits of the Earth and all other planets solar system.

The foci of planetary orbits are very close to the centers of the ellipses, which lie exactly in the middle between the foci.

Distance of the Earth from the Sun

Average distance of the Earth from the Sun is about 150 million kilometers. This distance is almost 3,750 times the circumference of the Earth's equator. To cover the distance from the Earth to the Sun, a train moving at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour must travel without stopping for about 350 years. Even with an airplane flying at about 350 kilometers per hour, it would take us 50 years to reach the Sun.

The Earth makes a full revolution around the Sun in a year, more precisely in 365 ¼ days. At this time, our planet covers a distance of about 900 million kilometers in global space. For more than 20 thousand years, a pedestrian must walk non-stop, covering 5 kilometers every hour to cover this distance. An airplane flying at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour would take about 300 years to make a non-stop flight over a distance equal to the one-year journey of our Earth.

Every second the Earth moves almost 30 kilometers in its orbit. In an hour it passes the path is about 108 thousand kilometers. Can you now imagine how long the Earth’s annual path is and with what enormous speed it rushes through the boundless expanses of the world.

We, regular earthly passengers, do not feel any shocks or any other inconveniences in our journey through the Universe on this “ship”. We are not afraid of the abyss that surrounds us - we are firmly established on our Earth.

If we could create such a flying projectile, the flight speed of which would be equal to the speed of the Earth’s movement along its orbit, or at least even 11 - 12 kilometers per second, then this projectile would leave the Earth on its first flight and, having overcome the force of its gravity, forever would disappear from our sight in the boundless world space.

If we had such a cannon, the shells of which would have a flight speed of about 9 kilometers per second, then these shells would turn into eternal satellites of our planet, they would forever circle around the Earth and could not fly far into outer space or fall to Earth.

Earth's orbital path

The Earth does not move in its orbit around the Sun at the same speed. The closer it is to the Sun, the greater its speed, and, conversely, with distance from the Sun its speed decreases. IN aphelion point(the point in the Earth's orbit that is farthest from the Sun), the Earth's speed is the smallest, and at perihelion point(the point in the earth's orbit that is closest to the Sun) is the largest.

Regardless of the fact that the constant movements of our planet are usually imperceptible, the various scientific facts It has long been proven that planet Earth moves along its own strictly defined trajectory not only around the Sun itself, but also around its own axis. This is what determines the mass natural phenomena observed by people every day, such as the change in time of day and night. Even at this moment, reading these lines, you are in constant motion, a movement that is caused by the movement of your native planet.

Fickle movement

It is interesting that the speed of the Earth itself is not a constant value, for reasons that scientists, unfortunately, have not been able to explain until now, however, it is known for certain that each century the Earth slightly slows down the speed of its normal rotation by an amount equal to approximately 0. 0024 seconds. It is believed that such an anomaly is directly related to a certain lunar attraction, which determines the ebb and flow of tides, on which our planet also spends significant share its own energy, which “slows down” its individual rotation. The so-called tidal protrusions, moving as usual in the direction opposite to the Earth's course, cause the emergence of certain frictional forces, which, in accordance with the laws of physics, are the main braking factor in such a powerful space system as the Earth.

Of course, there is actually no axis, it is an imaginary straight line that helps make calculations.

In one hour, it is believed that the Earth rotates 15 degrees. It’s not difficult to guess how long it takes for it to completely turn around its axis: 360 degrees - in one day in 24 hours.

Day at 23 o'clock

It is clear that the Earth rotates around its own axis in the 24 hours familiar to people - an ordinary earthly day, or more precisely - in 23 hours minutes and almost 4 seconds. The movement invariably occurs from the western part to the eastern part and nothing else. It is not difficult to calculate that under such conditions the speed at the equator will reach about 1670 kilometers per hour, gradually decreasing as it approaches the poles, where it smoothly goes to zero.

It is impossible to detect with the naked eye the rotation performed by the Earth at such a gigantic speed, because all surrounding objects move along with people. All planets in the solar system undergo similar movements. For example, Venus has a much lower speed of movement, which is why its days differ from those on Earth by more than two hundred and forty-three times.

The fastest planets known today are considered to be Jupiter and the planet Saturn, completing their full rotation around their axis in ten and ten and a half hours, respectively.

It should be noted that the rotation of the Earth around its axis is an extremely interesting and unknown fact that requires further close study by scientists around the world.