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Rotating_earth_(large).gif (400 × 400 pixels, file size: 978 KB, MIME type: image/gif, looped, 44 frames, 4.0 s) This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons . Information from its description page there is shown below.
Earth's rotation imaged by Deep Space Climate Observatory, showing tilt. Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise.
Polar motion of the Earth is the motion of the Earth's rotational axis relative to its crust. [2]: 1 This is measured with respect to a reference frame in which the solid Earth is fixed (a so-called Earth-centered, Earth-fixed or ECEF reference frame). This variation is a few meters on the surface of the Earth.
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The planet Earth has a rather slight equatorial bulge; its equatorial diameter is about 43 km (27 mi) greater than its polar diameter, with a difference of about 1 ⁄ 298 of the equatorial diameter. If Earth were scaled down to a globe with an equatorial diameter of 1 metre (3.3 ft), that difference would be only 3 mm (0.12 in).
Earth's rotation period relative to the fixed stars, called its stellar day by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), is 86,164.0989 seconds of mean solar time , or 23 h 56 m 4.0989 s. [2] [n 10] Earth's rotation period relative to the precessing or moving mean March equinox (when the Sun is at 90° on the ...
Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin and causing changes to its axis, new studies find. The shifts are causing feedback beneath the surface, impacting the planet's molten core.
True polar wander is a solid-body rotation of a planet or moon with respect to its spin axis, causing the geographic locations of the north and south poles to change, or "wander". Unless the body is totally rigid (which the Earth is not), its stable state rotation has the largest moment of inertia axis aligned with the spin axis, with the ...