In which direction does the earth spin and why? at what angle is the earths axis?

Question

In which direction does the earth spin and why? at what angle is the earths axis?

Answer 1

Caleb gives an excellent answer..."why" something is the way it is , is fundamental to science...when modern astronomical science was developing back in the late 1700's and early 1800's, that question was extremely important...as astronomers realized most of the planets rotated the same way, this bolstered the idea that the solar system formed out of a "cloud" or mass of material, all at the same time...had the planets been "out there" somewhere, already formed, and somehow captured by the sun, you would expect the tilt and rotation to be more or less random...but it wasn't.

Answer 2

If we call the path of the orbit of the Earth the horizonatl, the axis of rotation is tilted 23.5  to this.

Why does it spin? God knew it would be a good idea.

If it did not spin one side would be very hot the other very cold and in the middle would be very windy.

Direction? Wwell the sun looks to go from east to west. but it is because we are spinning from west to east.

Try standing in the middle of a room and turning slowly. you will soon get the idea

Answer 3

KISS - Keep it simple silly !

looking down from above the north pole the earth spins counter clockwise

standing on the surface we rotate (spin) west to east

we are tilted at 23 1/2 degrees from the vertical.

Answer 4

You should be able to work that out yourself

Clue: The sun comes up in the east!!!

Answer 5

The earth spins clockwise, well it just does, the angle of the axis varies.

Answer 6

The Earth spins cyclonically. That is to say that it spins anti- clockwise. All the plants bar Venus spin in this direction. As does the sun.

The Earth is tilted at 23.5 degrees from the perpendicular. This tilt is what gives us our seasons. Without it, we would have no Summer or winter. We would have the smallest variation in temps due to our elliptical orbit, but these would be minor.

Answer 7

The Earth rotates on its axis from West to East with its axis in the North/South direction (by definition of North and South). So it is rotating "due East".

To picture this yourself, remember that motion is relative: when the sun "rises" in the East, the eastern horizon is actually 'sinking' below it -- and when the sun "sets" in the west, the western horizon is actually 'rising' to overtake it. So your stationery spot on the surface is moving toward the east and away from the west. If you're in Denver, you're heading towards Kansas City!

You can also have fun with this using a globe and a flashlight: which way do you have to turn the globe so that an ant on the surface would see the flashlight 'sun' rise in the eastern sky, or set in the western sky?It rotates counter-clockwise, when looking 'down' at the north pole.

to answer your other question: Since our solar system came from a collapsed cloud of gas and dust, the tiniest asymetry in the structure of the cloud would cause the entire system to rotate about its center. The rotation caused some of the matter to end up in orbit around the sun - no rotation and all of that matter would have fallen into the sun. Similarly, the condensing of the earth in an asymetric way caused the earth to rotate.

Hope this helps!

Answer 8

The earth rotates on its axis from west to east. So it's rotating due east.  

Answer 9

Yeah.

What ever they said.

Answer 10

the earth rotates at 23.5 degrees