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Earth's rotation axis moves with respect to the fixed stars (inertial space); the components of this motion are precession and nutation. It also moves with respect to Earth's crust; this is called polar motion. Precession is a rotation of Earth's rotation axis, caused primarily by external torques from the gravity of the Sun, Moon and other bodies.
For example, on Earth, this situation occurs for a body at the equator falling downward, as in the Dechales illustration above, where the falling ball travels further to the east than does the tower. Note also that heading north in the northern hemisphere would have a velocity component toward the rotation axis, resulting in a Coriolis force to ...
Viewed from the north, Earth rotates anticlockwise or counterclockwise. Before clocks were commonplace, the terms "sunwise" and "deasil", "deiseil" and even "deocil" from the Scottish Gaelic language and from the same root as the Latin "dexter" ("right") were used for clockwise.
The circumpolar stars move clockwise around Sigma Octantis. East and west are not interchanged. As seen from the Equator, the two celestial poles are on the horizon due north and south, and the motion is counterclockwise (i.e. leftward) around Polaris and clockwise (i.e. rightward) around Sigma Octantis. All motion is westward, except for the ...
All eight planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in the direction of the Sun's rotation, which is counterclockwise when viewed from above the Sun's north pole. Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus.
All hurricanes in the northern hemisphere have one thing in common: they spin counterclockwise. The direction is caused by the Coriolis effect. Here's why hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the ...
For a while, the scientists reported, the core’s rotation matched Earth’s spin. Then it slowed even more, until the core was moving backward relative to the fluid layers around it.
Viewed from a vantage point above the Sun and Earth's north poles, Earth orbits in a counterclockwise direction about the Sun. The orbital and axial planes are not precisely aligned: Earth's axis is tilted some 23.44 degrees from the perpendicular to the Earth–Sun plane (the ecliptic ), and the Earth-Moon plane is tilted up to ±5.1 degrees ...