If I ask you what is your speed now? Maybe your first response, if they’re seated, is that they’re not moving. Let’s see why there is more than one answer to this question.

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Of course, if they read this in an armchair, it is correct that they answer that they are not moving, and therefore have no speed.

But if they think they are over Earth And that It rotates about 1,600 km / h on its axis, They might think that’s their speed.

Although if we take into account the planet, then it not only has a rotation, but also Revolves around the sun, At speeds of over 100,000 km / h.

So it is true that while reading this they have already traveled thousands of kilometers in space, although in reality they have not moved out of their living room.

This is because when we define the motion of something, we always have to create a reference to describe it, which is what we call a frame of reference.

So if we take into account the chair in which we sit, we can talk about our speed when we get up and away from it, and also for the translation of the Earth we take into account that it revolves around the sun.

You are here, but you have already moved on

In this expansion of frames of reference, from our armchair to space, it turns out The solar system is also moving.

Our solar system has a fairly specific place in Milky Way: Near the shores, in an arm of this spiral galaxy that we are part of.

But if we take the galactic center as a reference, The sun is not stationary and is moving at 790,000 km / hAnd, of course, the planets accompany this translation.

Although he appears to be moving very fast, The solar system has only completed about 20 galactic turns since the sun formed.

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The sun can take us with it on its space journey, due to the gravitational pull it exerts on all members of the solar system: planets, planets, asteroids, comets, and others.

Also, The center of the Milky Way galaxy exerts a force of gravity on the sun And the other stars in the galaxy, which are also taking them at full speed through the universe.

One of the reference frames that can be used to determine the velocity of galaxies is Microwave background radiationIt is a remnant of the origin of the universe, the Big Bang.

The microwave background radiation goes back a long time as we seer, but it also means that the farthest we can see and then, with respect to that distant point in spacetime, it turns out that The Milky Way is moving at a speed of about 2 million km / h.

So the next time you think you haven’t been on a pandemic trip for months, you can find some comfort in the idea that you have at least traveled millions of miles in the universe.