© 2007, Astronomical Society of the Pacific

No. 71 • Spring 2007 [Link]/uitc 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112

How Fast Are You Moving When You Are Sitting Still?
by Andrew Fraknoi
Foothill College & the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

W
hen, after a long day of running around, you Stream is part of contains more water than all the rivers of
finally find the time to relax in your favorite the world put together. It is circulated by the energy of our
armchair, nothing seems easier than just sitting turning planet.
still. But have you ever considered how fast you are really
moving when it seems you are not moving at all?

Daily Motion
When we are on a smoothly riding train, we sometimes get
the illusion that the train is standing still and the trees or
buildings are moving backwards. In the same way, because
we “ride” with the spinning Earth, it appears to us that the
Sun and the stars are the ones doing the moving as day and
night alternate. But actually, it is our planet that turns on
its axis once a day—and all of us who live on the Earth’s
surface are moving with it. How fast do we turn?
To make one complete rotation in 24 hours, a point near
the equator of the Earth must move at close to 1000 miles
per hour (1600 km/hr). The speed gets less as you move
north, but it’s still a good clip throughout the United States.
Because gravity holds us tight to the surface of our planet,
we move with the Earth and don’t notice its rotation1 in
everyday life.
The great circular streams of water in our oceans and of air The Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 Crew on the way to the Moon.
in our atmosphere give dramatic testimony to the turning
Image credit: NASA
of the Earth2. As the Earth turns, with faster motion at the
equator and slower motion near the poles, great wheels
Yearly Motion
of water and air circulate in the northern and southern
hemisphere. For example, the Gulf Stream, which carries In addition to spinning on its axis, the Earth also revolves
warm water from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Great around the Sun. We are approximately 93 million miles
Britain, and makes England warmer and wetter than it (150 million km) from the Sun, and at that distance, it takes
otherwise would be, is part of the great wheel of water in us one year (365 days) to go around once. The full path of
the North Atlantic Ocean. The wheel (or gyre) that the Gulf the Earth’s orbit is close to 600 million miles (970 million
km). To go around this immense circle in one year takes a

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 1

speed of 66,000 miles per hour (107 million km/hr)3. At It’s only that the Galaxy is so immense, that compared to
this speed, you could get from San Francisco to Washington its total size, the stars we use to define our Sun’s motion do
DC in 3 minutes. As they say on TV, please don’t try going seem to be in the “neighborhood.”)
this fast without serious adult supervision. Relative to the local standard of rest, our Sun and the
Earth are moving at about 43,000 miles per hour (70,000
km/hr) roughly in the direction of the bright star Vega in
the constellation of Lyra. This speed is not unusual for the
stars around us and is our “milling around” speed in our
suburban part of the Galaxy.

The Sun travels with billions of other stars through the Milky Way Galaxy, which
The Sun, seen in ultraviolet light with instruments aboard the SOHO satellite. is thought to look much like the Andromeda Galaxy, pictured above.

Image credit: SOHO Image credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC)

Orbiting the Galaxy

The Sun’s Motion
In addition to the individual motions of the stars within it,
Our Sun is just one star among several hundred billion
the entire Galaxy is in spinning motion like an enormous
others that together make up the Milky Way Galaxy. This
pinwheel. Although the details of the Galaxy’s spin are
is our immense “island of stars” and within it, each star
complicated (stars at different distances move at different
is itself moving. Any planet orbiting a star will share its
speeds), we can focus on the speed of the Sun around the
motion through the Galaxy with it. Stars, as we shall see,
center of the Milky Way Galaxy5.
can be moving in a random way, just “milling about” in
their neighborhoods, and also in organized ways, moving It takes our Sun approximately 225 million years to make
around the center of the Galaxy. the trip around our Galaxy. This is sometimes called our
“galactic year”. Since the Sun and the Earth first formed,
If we want to describe the motion of a star like our Sun
about 20 galactic years have passed; we have been around
among all the other stars, we run up against a problem. We
the Galaxy 20 times. On the other hand, in all of recorded
usually define motion by comparing the moving object
human history, we have barely moved in our long path
to something at rest. A car moves at 60 miles per hour
around the Milky Way.
relative to a reference post attached to the Earth, such as the
highway sign, for example. But if all the stars in the Galaxy How fast do we have to move to make it around the Milky
are moving, what could be the “reference post” to which we Way in one galactic year? It’s a huge circle, and the speed
can compare its motion? with which the Sun has to move is an astounding 483,000
miles per hour (792,000 km/hr)! The Earth, anchored to
Astronomers define a local standard of rest in our section
the Sun by gravity, follows along at the same fantastic speed.
of the Galaxy by the average motion of all the stars in our
(By the way, as fast as this speed is, it is still a long way from
neighborhood4. (Note that in using everyday words, such as
the speed limit of the universe—the speed of light. Light
“local” and “neighborhood”, we do a disservice to the mind-
travels at the unimaginably fast pace of 670 million miles
boggling distances involved. Even the nearest star is over
per hour or 1.09 billion km/hr.)
25 thousand billion miles (40 thousand billion km) away.

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 2

 An artist’s illustration of the Milky Way Galaxy

Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss

Moving through the Universe compared to the Moon or the Sun, on the other hand, is
quite large. When we talk about your speed going around
As we discussed the different speeds of our planet so far,
the Galaxy, we measure it relative to the center of the Milky
we always needed to ask, “Compared to what are you
Way.
measuring this motion?” In your armchair, your motion
compared to the walls of your room is zero. Your motion Now we want to finish up by looking at the motion of
the entire Milky Way Galaxy through space. What can we
compare its motion to—what is the right frame of reference?
For a long time, astronomers were not sure how to answer
this question. We could measure the motion of the Milky
Way relative to a neighbor galaxy, but this galaxy is also
moving. The universe is filled with great islands of stars
(just like the Milky Way) and each of them is moving in its
own way. No galaxy is sitting still! But then, a surprising
discovery in the 1960s showed us a new way to think of our
galaxy’s motion.

The Flash of the Big Bang

To understand this new development, we have to think a
little bit about the Big Bang, the enormous explosion that
was the beginning of space, time, and the whole universe.
Right after the Big Bang, the universe was full of energy and
very, very hot. In fact, for the first few minutes, the entire
universe was hotter than the center of our Sun. It was an
unimaginable maelstrom of energy and subatomic particles,
slowly cooling and sorting itself out into the universe we
know today.
The Hubble Deep Field image shows some of
the most distant Galaxies in the Universe. At that early time, the energy in the universe was in the
form of gamma rays, waves of energy like the visible
Image credit: Robert Williams and the Hubble Deep Field Team (STScI) and NASA

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 3

light we see, but composed of much shorter waves with telescopes and rockets in orbit to confirm that the radio
higher energy. Today on Earth, it takes a nuclear bomb waves the two scientists had discovered were really coming
to produce significant amounts of gamma rays. But then, from all over space, Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel
the whole universe was filled with them. You can think of Prize in physics for having found the most direct evidence
these gamma-rays as the “flash” of the Big Bang—just like for the Big Bang.
fireworks or a bomb can produce a flash of light, the Big
Bang resulted in a flash of gamma rays. But these gamma
rays were everywhere in the universe. They filled all of
space, and as the universe grew (expanded), the gamma rays
expanded with it.
When people first think about the expansion of the
universe, they naturally think of other expansions they have
experience with: how the American colonies eventually
expanded to become the 48 states of the U.S. or how an
exploding bomb might throw shrapnel in every direction.
In these situations, the space into which the colonies or
the shrapnel is expanding already exists. But the expansion WMAP image of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation

of the universe is not like any other expansion. When the Image credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team
universe expands, it is space itself that is stretching. The
galaxies in the universe are moving apart because space Moving through the CBR
stretches and creates more distance between them.
What, you might be asking yourself, does all this have to do
What does this mind-stretching idea of stretching space with how fast we are moving? Well, astronomers can now
mean for our gamma rays? The gamma rays are waves of measure how fast the Earth is moving compared to this
energy moving through space. As space stretches, the waves radiation filling all of space. (Technically, our motion causes
that are in space must stretch too. Stretched gamma rays one kind of Doppler Shift7 in the radiation we observe
are called x-rays. So as the universe expanded, the waves of in the direction that we are moving and another in the
energy filling space stretched out to become less energetic direction opposite.)
(cooler) x-rays. As the universe continued to expand, the
Put another way, the CBR provides a “frame of reference”
same waves became ultra-violet light. Later they became
for the universe at large, relative to which we can measure
visible light, but there were no eyes in the hot compressed
our motion. From the motion we measure compared to the
universe to see them yet. (When we take the lid of a hot
pressure cooker, the steam will expand into the room and
cool down. In the same way, we can think of the waves of
energy in the expanding universe as cooling down—getting
less energetic.)
Today, some 12 to 15 billion years after the Big Bang, there
has been a lot of stretching. Space has expanded quite a bit.
The flash of the Big Bang has stretched until it is now much
longer, lower energy waves—microwaves and other radio
waves. But the waves have stretched with the space they
occupy, and so they still fill the universe, just the way they
did at the time of creation.
Astronomers call the collection of all these stretched waves
the cosmic background radiation6 or CBR. Physicists back
in the late 1940’s predicted that there should be such a
background, but since no one had the equipment to find
it, the prediction was forgotten. Then, in the mid 1960s,
two scientists working for Bell Laboratories, Arno Penzias There is thought to be a large concentration of mass in the in the direction of
and Robert Wilson, accidentally discovered the CBR while Leo and Virgo, since the galaxies near the Milky Way seem to be streaming in
helping to get communications satellite technology going that direction. A portion of this section of the sky is shown in the image above.

for the phone company. After astronomers used other Image credit: ESO

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 4

CBR, we need to subtract out the motion of the Earth About the Author
around the Sun and the Sun around the center of the Milky
Andrew Fraknoi is the Chair of the Astronomy Department
Way. The motion that’s left must be the particular motion
at Foothill College and Educational Consultant for the
of our Galaxy through the universe!
Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Before joining the
And how fast is the Milky Way Galaxy moving? The faculty at Foothill in 1992, he served as the Society’s
speed turns out to be an astounding 1.3 million miles per Executive Director for 14 years and was the editor of its
hour (2.1 million km/hr)! We are moving roughly in the popular-level astronomy magazine, Mercury, as well as the
direction on the sky that is defined by the constellations of founder of this teacher’s newsletter, the Universe in the
Leo and Virgo. Although the reasons for this motion are not Classroom.
fully understood, astronomers believe that there is a huge
Fraknoi is author or coauthor of 14 books on astronomy
concentration of matter in this direction. Some people call
and astronomy education, editor of the Universe at Your
it The Great Attractor, although we now know that the pull
Fingertips, a frequent guest on national radio programs, a
is probably not due to one group of galaxies but many. Still
member of the Board of Trustees at the SETI Institute, and
the extra gravity in this direction pulls the Milky Way (and
a Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
many neighbor galaxies) in that direction.
Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Together with Sidney
Wolff, he also edits Astronomy Education Review, an on-
No Rest for the Weary line journal for astronomy educators.
So the next time someone in your family or group of friends
calls you lazy for just sitting there, you can politely remark
that, although it may look as if you are just sitting, you are
actually moving at great speed around the Earth, around
the Sun, around the Milky Way, and through the universe.
Surely, a lot of energy is required for all that motion. I’ll
confess this line has never gotten me out of having to do
household chores for long, but perhaps you’ll have better
luck with it. And your students, who often have trouble
sitting still, will surely appreciate learning that, cosmically
speaking, they are in constant motion.

Little Girl in Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt, National Gallery of Art,

Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 5

Classroom Activity #1: Your Galactic Address
In this activity, students explore the different realms of the cosmos and our place in the larger universe by addressing a
letter to a friend in a distant galaxy. Rather than just including house number, street, city, state and country, they also
include their place in the solar system and the galaxy.
The entire write-up for this activity is available here8. This activity is printed here with permission from Planetarium
Activities for Student Success (PASS; [Link] produced by the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of
California, Berkeley. Copyright 1993 by the Regents of the University of California. A number of astronomy activities are
available for free download on the PASS website.

Classroom Activity #2: Cosmic Calendar

Cosmology—the study of our universe, how it began, and how it has evolved—can seem incomprehensible to students
because of the vast eons of time between today and the beginning of the universe. This activity will provide a “bridge”
across time that will make the numbers more meaningful.
In “Cosmic Calendar” 9, students scale the evolution of the universe to a one year calendar, with the Big Bang occuring on
the first moment of January 1st. Students estimate where on this one year time line significant events (like the formation of
the solar system, the appearance of dinosaurs and the emergence of humanity) should be placed. More advanced students
can research the dates of significant events and calculate when in the model timeline these events occurred.
This activity appears in the Universe at Your Fingertips and was written by Therese Puyau Blanchard and the staff of
Project ASTRO. Copyright © 1995, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 390 Ashton Ave., San Francisco, CA 94112.

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 6

Resources
1. Ask An Astronomer: Are we able to feel the Earth spin?
[Link]

2. Coriolis Effect: how the spinning of the Earth affects the tides and winds
[Link]

3. Ask An Astronomer: At what speed does the Earth move around the Sun?
[Link]

4. The Solar Neighborhood

[Link]

5. The Milky Way Galaxy

[Link]

6. Cosmic Microwave Background

[Link]

7. Redshift and the Expanding Universe

[Link]

8. Classroom Activity: Your Galactic Address from PASS at the Lawrence Hall of Science
[Link]

9. Classroom Activity: Cosmic Calendar

[Link]

Additional Resources

Ask An Astronomer
On this page, a Cornell astronomer answers the following question: Considering the motion of the Earth, the solar system,
and the galaxy, how fast am I moving while lying in bed asleep?
[Link]

“Where Are We Going? Notes on the Absolute Motion of the Solar System Through Space.”
by Timothy Ferris, Sky & Telescope, May, 1987 (available in most large libraries)

The NASA Universe Forum

From the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, this is a national center for teaching and learning about the
Universe.
[Link]

One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos

This book details the origins and fate of the Unverse, with chapters on motion and energy. Written at a good popular level
by well-know astronomers and science educators Neil De Grasse Tyson, Charles Lui, and Rober Irion, the entire text is
available for free online.
[Link]

An Ancient Universe: How Astronomers Know the Vast Scale of Cosmic Time
This special edition of The Universe in the Classroom gives some of the background on how scientists have been able to
measure cosmic ages as well as some references to classroom activities and resources for further exploration of some the
astronomical discussed.
[Link]

Universe in the Classroom No. 71 • Spring 2007 Page 7