Why can’t we feel the earth moving?

We don’t feel the earth moving even though it’s spinning on its axis and racing around the Sun because everything around us is moving with it at the same constant speed. The earth rotates once every 24 hours, which means that at the equator you’re actually moving at about 1,600 km/hr. It also travels around the sun at about 1,07,000 km/hr. But since this motion is smooth and constant, there’s no change in speed or direction that our bodies can sense.

Our inner ears and bodies detect motion only when there’s acceleration, such as when a car starts, stops or turns. When a car moves steadily on a smooth highway, you can’t feel the motion unless you look outside. The same idea applies to the earth’s movement. There’s no sudden acceleration, and we move with the planet, the air, the oceans, and everything else on it.

We also can’t see the motion directly because distant stars and the sun appear fixed from our perspective. It’s only through scientific observation, like watching the stars rise and set or measuring time differences, that we know the earth is constantly in motion.