Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Register Log in
  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Earth rotation

Status
Not open for further replies.
electronic novice

electronic novice

Member
We all know that the earth rotates and that it also revolves around the sun and my question is. what if an airplane would just stay up in the air and wont move could it possibly reach another place? Example if it would stay in asia could it reach america? since the world rotates?
 
Aircraft that "stay up in the air" are called balloons. Does that help answer your question?

Mike.
 
If it moved counter to the earths spin at the same angular velocity ([LATEX]\omega[/LATEX]) ([LATEX]\omega = 2 \pi f[/LATEX] or [LATEX]\omega = v/r[/LATEX])

If it could do this, then it would be in what we call "Geostationary orbit". The true definition is that the planes time period of orbit inverse to the earth would be 24 hours. with [LATEX]f=1/T[/LATEX] we can also say it's when the plane has a frequency of [LATEX]1.16x10^-5 [/LATEX]Hz
 
Last edited:
not moving is a relative term, if you actually didnt move, the whole solar system would fly by,

isnt that what the movie THE PHILADELPHIA PROJECT, or THE MANHATTAN EXPERIMENT(one of em) was all about?
 
Correct, however since the satellite (plane in this case) is within the range of the gravity of the earth (Gravity has an infinite range but also follows the inverse square law so very quickly becomes negligible, so excuse my use of "within range") we class it as being in the earth's system, so the rest of the universe isn't taken into account. Therefore, relative to the Earth, the satellite is stationary.
 
misterT said:
Haha.. Did you try what you originally asked? How long were you up there :)
Click to expand...

He he. Everybody knows that everything that happens in Asia stays in Asia :)


electronic novice said:
We all know that the earth rotates and that it also revolves around the sun and my question is. what if an airplane would just stay up in the air and wont move could it possibly reach another place? Example if it would stay in asia could it reach america? since the world rotates?
Click to expand...

Yeah the air around the Earth moves with the Earth except for winds which have a mind of their own, but with no wind something that hovered in the air would stay there and not migrate to another region, not even the next town over, unless it had propulsion of some sort to push it in that direction through the still air.

Satellites stay in geosynchronous orbit so they dont move either.
 
Last edited:
I realize this is is a somewhat old thread, but since it's been resurrected anyway...

Something you have to remember is that the airplane (or balloon, or whatever) would have to take off from the earth, which is already moving. This gives the object the same movement. It is the same as if you are walking down a sidewalk and toss a ball straight up in the air, from your perspective. From your point of view, the ball goes straight up and comes straight back to your hands. It does not land behind you. However, from a bystander's point of view, the ball appears to have a parabolic trajectory. It is easy to see that the movement is there as soon as the object "takes off", and it will always have that same forward movement unless another force acts upon it in a different direction, which defeats the whole purpose of this idea.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top