On the move this morning

I'm sitting outside on a Sunday morning, enjoying dawn events at a time when the world appears most perfectly still.

Then I go inside and read in the paper that astronomers have made a new discovery that has changed the way they must think about the universe. I would hate to be an astronomer. They work their tails off for five or six years, trying to understand the universe as it now appears. It is reported to be very hard work, bordering on the unfathomable. They keep at it, because that is what they do. Then comes a "new discovery" that, overnight, forces them to change the way they think about the universe. What kind of life is that?

The new discovery this time is the speed at which our solar system – the Sun and planets – orbits the center of the Milky Way. Before, they thought that speed was about half a million miles an hour. Now they believe it to be nearer 600,000 miles an hour, and not only that, the Milky Way apparently is actually broader and has 50 per cent more mass than was previously believed. The Milky Way has been up there for millions of years, and scientists have been looking at it hard for at least 100 years, and until now they didn't know any better than this how fast it was spinning, how big it was, and how dense it was.

But that's another story. My immediate interest is in going back outside to the glider, sitting perfectly still, feeling a bit of breeze, seeing only a couple of cars on the freeway in the distance. But now the story has reminded me of something scientific that I heard decades ago, that the Earth is moving in nine different directions at once. Therefore, so am I. I am remembering this at the moment the Sun rises (now below Tut's folded hands). Of course the Sun only appears to rise. What has actually happened is that the Earth is spinning from west to east, and it has just spun east far enough to let me see the Sun.

The Earth is 24,000 miles, roughly, in diameter. That means in 24 hours, the planet has rotated from where it was at yesterday's dawn, full circle to this dawn. It is rotating from west to east at a speed of 1,000 miles per hour, and me along with it. Sitting here perfectly still on the glider, I am riding a Tilt-a-Whirl going 1,000 miles an hour.

And of course the Earth is moving around the sun, giving us seasons, and the Winter Solstice at Tut's eye, and so forth. I know it takes 365 days (plus a fraction) for the Earth to circle the Sun, but I don't know how far it is. For this, I need Google.

Google takes me to the Astronomy Café, operated by Dr. Sten Odenwald, whom I take the liberty of quoting:

"The speed of the Earth in its orbit around the sun is 29.79 kilometers per second. The Sun and the solar system are, in turn, in orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The orbit takes about 225 million years and currently the direction of this motion is in the general direction of the bright star Vega in the constellation Lyra The Harp. The speed of this motion relative to stars near the Sun is 19.7 kilometers per second, however, the Sun and Vega along with other local stars are orbiting the center of the Milky Way at a speed of 225 kilometers per second. The entire Milky Way is, in turn, in orbit around the Virgo cluster of galaxies located 19 million parsecs away. The speed of this motion is about 365 kilometers per second."

I have yet to make the intellectual shift from miles to kilometers, so I ask Google to provide me a converter from kph to mph, and compliance is, of course, instant. Thus: The Earth is orbiting the Sun at 66,638 mph. I skipped the "speed of this motion relative to stars near the Sun" because I didn't understand a word of it. Then we come to the speed of our solar system around the center of the galaxy, which translates in Dr. Odenwald's reckoning to 502,311 mph, but of course that is an old figure replaced this morning by the new reckoning of about 600,000 mph. Then the entire Milky Way is in orbit around "the Virgo cluster" at a speed of 816,482 mph.

So in my dawn repose on the glider, I am simultaneously moving at speeds of 1,000 mph, 66,638 mph, 600,000 mph, and 816,482 mph, in directions unknown to me except for east. Not accounted for is the speed at which "the Virgo cluster" is orbiting something, and what that something is orbiting, but that's okay because my head is spinning much too fast to care.