User: Paine Ellsworth/Our movement through space

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Every person I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from them. Emerson (paraphrased)
Our movement through space
This "think" page really gets me thinking, gets my mind to move through space. And as we all know, when we move, our movement takes time. That's why it is called spacetime, because any and all movement through space involves the passage of time.
As we stand or sit here on the Earth, it really doesn't feel like we're moving through spacetime, does it, no it feels as if we are just being still, not moving. But we are moving. (We don't notice it because this is just about velocity and not about acceleration.) Earth rotates on its axis and takes about a day for a full rotation. So if you are standing on the equator, a line that goes all around the Earth and is about 25,000 miles long from where you are standing back around to where you're standing, and it takes you a day to actually move from one point in space all the way back around for one rotation, then you are actually moving at a rate of more than 1,000 mph (miles per hour)! This speed decreases as we are positioned at different latitudes off the equator. And that's just the beginning of our movement through space.
Around the Sun
Earth both rotates and revolves around the Sun. We take about a year to go completely around the Sun. We are so far away from our Sun that Earth must go really fast to make a full circle (well, almost a "circle") as we move around our star. Earth (and therefore we) and the Moon move at a rate of about 66,000 mph through space as we orbit the Sun!
Galaxy movement
So we see that we move in a very complicated fashion. It does not stop with the Earth's rotation and orbit around the Sun. Our star like many other stars revolves around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. That movement takes from 200 to 250 million years for a complete revolution, and our solar system is about 30,000 light years out from the galaxy center. We must be going pretty darn fast to make that circuit in the time necessary. You do the math if you like.
The Milky Way is also moving through space in a direction just about opposite from where we are right now. That makes it very difficult to see what's out in front of us, as if we are like flies on the rear-view window of our galaxy. Modern technology has enabled us to "see" where we're going, though, and we are headed at a very fast speed toward an immense and very faraway galaxy cluster. Those galaxies are collectively known as the Great Attractor, and they pull on our Milky Way and all nearby galaxies. Science also dubbed our actual movement toward that galaxy cluster as "dark flow".
Just know
When you're driving or riding in your car, you don't feel any movement unless you accelerate or slow down. You might seem to feel movement, but that's just because you can see the outside flying by. If your windows were blackened so you couldn't see out, then you would think you're sitting still even if the vehicle were going sixty mph. As you sit there in front of your computer, don't try to feel the movement. Just sit there, apparently "stationary", and just know that you are always moving. Your position in space and time is always changing. You're moving around the center of the Earth, around the Sun, around the center of the Milky Way, toward the Great Attractor, and who knows what other direction(s). You and I are always on the move. Awesome! and inspiring!


Thank you for reading!


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