Wondering how much the Earth spins.

I am going to ask you a question. How much does the Earth spin in one day? Now that sounds like a simple question, doesn’t it? My quick answer would be that it spins around 360 degrees (one full turn) each 24 hours. So, do you agree with my quick answer?


OK, I know that I said I was going to ask you “a” question and it turned into three questions, but you know, sometimes I get carried away. So, now let us think about this a little more. The Earth also rotates around the Sun once a year. I think we all accept that fact instead of what they used to think, that the Sun rotated around the Earth. Well, everyone was wrong; everything rotates around me, right? Just kidding.

To make my computations simple, I am going to round off some numbers. For instance, lets just say that there are 360 days in a year instead of 365; this will let things come out in whole numbers that are very close to the actual ones. Now, if the Earth rotates 360 degrees around its axis each day and also revolves around the Sun in about 360 days, that would mean that when the Earth got half way around the Sun that the Sun would be as high in the sky at midnight as it was going to get and it would be pitch black dark at noon. So something in our assumptions must be wrong.

The error is in thinking that the Earth rotates on its axis 360 degrees each day, when in fact, it rotates 361 degrees each day. That keeps the night dark and the day bright, unless it is cloudy. That roughly means that at the same time each day we are orientate to the sun the same way. Since the Earth tilts on its axis in relation to its orbit, the length of the days change and the location of the sun at noon in the sky moves north and south depending on the seasons, but it is always at its highest point at noon and at that time your shadow points north (if you live north of the equator).

Now that I am thoroughly confused, I will just say that I hope your day is sunny, unless you need rain like we do.