One more dumb question bc I need help understanding. The following is copied straight from google search by scientific America. I asked how fast is earth moving through space. This is the answer:
It covers this route at a speed of nearly 30 kilometers per second, or 67,000 miles per hour. In addition, our solar system--Earth and all--whirls around the center of our galaxy at some 220 kilometers per second, or 490,000 miles per hour.
NOW, my dumb question is. How the heck do we take still pictures of a huge giant ball moving 490,000 miles per hr into the universe? Our satellites or whatever we use to take “pictures/video” would have to be so far away! Right? Like when we see an airplane moving 400 miles per hour way up in the sky. We are how far away? Now the size of earth is what and moving at the 490,000 miles per hr. How is that even possible? Please someone help me here
Answer: we can take pictures of earth from space because satellites orbit around the earth. They go around the earth, but travel with it, so the earth as a whole isn’t speeding away from them. In short, the answer is relative motion. The earth only moves at 67000 mph relative to the sun.
One more dumb question bc I need help understanding. The following is copied straight from google search by scientific America. I asked how fast is earth moving through space. This is the answer: It covers this route at a speed of nearly 30 kilometers per second, or 67,000 miles per hour. In addition, our solar system--Earth and all--whirls around the center of our galaxy at some 220 kilometers per second, or 490,000 miles per hour. NOW, my dumb question is. How the heck do we take still pictures of a huge giant ball moving 490,000 miles per hr into the universe? Our satellites or whatever we use to take “pictures/video” would have to be so far away! Right? Like when we see an airplane moving 400 miles per hour way up in the sky. We are how far away? Now the size of earth is what and moving at the 490,000 miles per hr. How is that even possible? Please someone help me here
Answer: we can take pictures of earth from space because satellites orbit around the earth. They go around the earth, but travel with it, so the earth as a whole isn’t speeding away from them. In short, the answer is relative motion. The earth only moves at 67000 mph relative to the sun.