Sitting still, you are moving at about 1,040 mph (the Earth's spin, at the equator), 66,600 mph around the Sun, about 550,000 mph around the galaxy, and about 830,000 mph against the oldest light in the universe. You cannot feel any of it. Here is how each number was measured, and why your body cannot detect it.
The numbers, checked
- Spin: the Earth is about 24,900 miles around and turns once every 23 h 56 min, so a point on the equator moves at about 1,040 mph (1,674 km/h). Mumbai about 984 mph, Dubai 942, Houston 904, Sydney 865, New York 790, London 649, the poles 0
- Orbit: 186 million miles across, once around in a year: about 66,600 mph (107,200 km/h), 18.5 miles every second. Fastest in early January (67,760 mph), slowest in early July (65,520). Relative to the Sun you are about 2,000 mph faster at midnight than at noon, because the spin adds to the orbit on the night side
- The Sun drifts about 16,000 mph upward out of the galaxy's disc and sits about 68 light-years above the mid-plane
- Around the galaxy: the Sun is about 26,700 light-years from the centre and moves at about 550,000 mph (247 ± 4 km/s, Reid et al. 2019; NASA's older round figure is 230 km/s, about 515,000 mph). One lap: roughly 200 to 230 million years.
- The viral "vortex" video draws the orbits at 90 degrees to the Sun's path. The real tilt is about 60 degrees, the Earth is sometimes ahead of the Sun and sometimes behind, and each loop is 1 AU wide while the Sun moves 52 AU forward per loop. Our loops are drawn 12 times wider, and the label says so
- Against the cosmic microwave background: 369.82 ± 0.11 km/s = about 830,000 mph (Planck 2018), 230 miles every second, toward Leo / Crater. The colours of the CMB sphere are exaggerated; the real difference is about one part in a thousand
- The Local Group: about 1.4 million mph (627 km/s, COBE). Andromeda approaches at about 245,000 mph; merger odds from about 50 percent in 10 billion years (Sawala 2025) to about 90 percent (Wu 2026)
- Why you feel nothing: only a change of speed or direction can be felt (spin 0.35 percent of your weight, the Sun 0.06 percent in free fall, the galaxy 1 part in 42 billion)
- The four speeds are measured against different things and point in different directions; they do not add up to one total
- During this video you travelled about 13,300 miles around the Sun and about 110,000 miles around the galaxy. In 80 years: about 390 billion miles, still under 7 percent of one light-year
Sources and credits
- Earth's size, rotation and orbit: NASA NSSDC Earth Fact Sheet. The Sun's speed around the galaxy: Reid et al. 2019, ApJ 885, 131 (BeSSeL maser parallaxes); NASA StarChild (older value). Distance to the galactic centre: GRAVITY Collaboration 2019 and 2021. Solar-system acceleration: Gaia Collaboration, Klioner et al. 2021 (Gaia EDR3; Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC). The Sun's motion and height: Schönrich, Binney and Dehnen 2010; Bennett and Bovy 2019. Cosmic microwave background dipole: Planck Collaboration 2018 (ESA). Local Group motion: Kogut et al. 1993 (COBE). Andromeda: van der Marel et al. 2012 (HST); Sawala et al. 2025 (Nature Astronomy); Wu et al. 2026. Planet positions: NASA JPL Solar System Dynamics. Sky backdrop: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, Deep Star Maps 2020, built with ESA/Gaia/DPAC (Gaia DR2), Hipparcos-2 and Tycho-2 data. Earth and planet surfaces: NASA (Blue Marble, Black Marble, LRO, Viking, JPL, NASA 3D Resources). The Milky Way and Andromeda are model shapes (the Sun's distance, speed and orbit are measured); the CMB sphere is drawn from the published dipole numbers with exaggerated colours; sped-up clocks and widened loops are marked on screen. All 3D is rendered in our own engine. Every number is spoken exactly as it appears on screen.
- Narration: AI-generated voice (ElevenLabs), script researched and written by Vishala Space.
- Information, not advice. Vishala Space is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA or ESA.
Visuals are original 3D renders from the data above, not real footage. Vishala Space is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, JPL/Caltech, NOAA, USGS, ESA or any data provider.
Full transcript
This is Vishala Space. Right now, sitting still, you are moving at about a thousand miles an hour. That is just the spin of the Earth. Around the Sun, you are doing sixty-six thousand six hundred. Around the galaxy, more than half a million. And measured against the oldest light in the universe, about eight hundred and thirty thousand miles an hour. You cannot feel any of it.
By the end of this episode you will know exactly why, and how every one of these numbers was measured. First, a small problem. The word fast means nothing on its own. Fast compared to what? In your chair, compared to the floor, your speed is zero. So tonight we measure you against four things, one after the other. The ground under you.
The Sun. The centre of our galaxy. And the oldest light there is, the glow left over from the beginning of the universe. Four reference points. Four speeds. Each one bigger than the last. Speed one.
The ground. The Earth is about twenty-four thousand nine hundred miles around at the equator, and it turns once every twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. Not twenty-four hours. That is the time it takes to face the same star again, and it is the number NASA's own fact sheet uses. Divide one by the other, and a person standing on the equator is moving at about one thousand and forty miles an hour. But that is the equator. Move away from it, and your circle gets smaller.
In Mumbai, you are doing nine hundred and eighty-four. In Dubai, nine hundred and forty-two. In Houston, nine hundred and four. In Sydney, eight hundred and sixty-five. In New York, seven hundred and ninety. In London, six hundred and forty-nine. And at the North Pole, zero.
You just turn around once a day, standing on the spot. So your first speed depends on where you sit. Hold that thought, because it comes back. Speed two needs the biggest ruler we own: the Earth's orbit. Last episode we used it to measure the stars. Today we use it to measure you. The orbit is one hundred and eighty-six million miles across, and the Earth goes all the way around it in one year.
That works out to about sixty-six thousand six hundred miles an hour. Eighteen and a half miles every second. And here is the first strange thing. At midnight, your side of the Earth is turning the same way the Earth is flying. At noon, it is turning the opposite way. So, relative to the Sun, you are about two thousand miles an hour faster at midnight than at noon. Every single day.
The orbit is not a perfect circle either. In early January the Earth is closest to the Sun, and it moves fastest: about sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and sixty miles an hour. In early July it is farthest, and slowest: sixty-five thousand five hundred and twenty. A difference of about two thousand two hundred miles an hour between winter and summer. Over one year, that orbit is five hundred and eighty-four million miles long. And during this video, just around the Sun, you will travel about thirteen thousand three hundred miles. That is more than half way around the Earth, while you sit still.
But the Sun is not sitting still either. Compared to the stars around it, it is drifting. About sixteen thousand miles an hour upward, out of the flat disc of the galaxy, and it is already about sixty-eight light-years above the middle of that disc. Small numbers, for a star. The big number is the one that carries the Sun, the Earth, and you, all at once. Speed three. Let us leave the solar system.
The Sun sits about twenty-six thousand seven hundred light-years from the centre of the Milky Way, and it goes around that centre. Not guessed. Measured. In twenty nineteen, a team led by Mark Reid used radio telescopes across the Earth to track about two hundred glowing clouds along the spiral arms, and measured the Sun's speed around the galaxy at about five hundred and fifty thousand miles an hour. If you have heard a smaller number, that is NASA's older round figure: about five hundred and fifteen thousand. The modern measurements agree to within a few percent. One lap takes something like two hundred to two hundred and thirty million years.
One hundred and fifty miles. Every second. That is you, right now. There is a famous video that shows the planets corkscrewing behind the Sun like a comet's tail. The corkscrew is real. The picture is not.
In that video the orbits stand at a right angle to the Sun's path. The real angle is about sixty degrees. And the Sun does not drag the planets behind it. Sometimes the Earth is ahead of the Sun, sometimes behind. The real shape is a long, gentle spring. Each loop is one Earth-orbit wide, and the Sun moves about fifty-two of those widths forward in the time the Earth makes one loop. Almost a straight line.
The measured version is quieter than the viral one. It is also true. Speed four. This is the oldest light in the universe. The glow left over from when the universe was about three hundred and eighty thousand years old, now stretched into microwaves, coming from every direction at once. The Planck satellite mapped it. And one half of the sky is very slightly warmer than the other half.
About one part in a thousand. That is not a fact about the universe. It is a fact about us. It is the light ahead of us, squeezed, and the light behind us, stretched, because we are moving through it. Planck's number: three hundred and sixty-nine point eight two kilometres per second. About eight hundred and thirty thousand miles an hour. Two hundred and thirty miles every second, toward a point in the sky between the constellations Leo and Crater.
This is the most precise speed in this whole episode. And it is the speed of the Sun, with you on it. And it does not stop there. Our whole Local Group of galaxies, the Milky Way, Andromeda, and about a hundred smaller ones, is moving through that same glow at about one point four million miles an hour. Andromeda itself is coming toward us at about two hundred and forty-five thousand miles an hour. Whether the two galaxies will ever actually merge is still open. The newest studies put the odds anywhere from a coin flip to nine in ten.
Measured, with the uncertainty left on. So why can you feel none of this? In sixteen thirty-two, Galileo described a ship. Below deck, with no window, you cannot tell whether the ship is sailing smoothly or tied up at the dock. You feel exactly the same. You already know this is true. On a plane at five hundred miles an hour, you pour a coffee, and it lands in the cup.
Steady speed is invisible. The only thing your body can ever feel is a change in speed, or a change in direction. And the changes are tiny. The spin of the Earth pulls you outward with about a third of a percent of your weight. You do weigh a little less at the equator, and that is why. The Earth's orbit around the Sun: about six hundredths of a percent, and you cannot feel it at all, because the Earth is falling around the Sun, and you are falling with it. The orbit around the galaxy: one part in forty-two billion.
There is nothing to feel. The fastest motions in your life are the ones your body cannot detect. One honest thing before the end. These four speeds do not add up to one total. Each one is measured against a different thing, and they point in different directions. Planck's eight hundred and thirty thousand already includes the orbit around the galaxy. And the Earth's own orbit changes it by about sixty-six thousand six hundred miles an hour through the year, as we swing toward that point in the sky and away again.
There is no final, true speed. In your chair, measured against your chair, you really are sitting still. Every other number in this episode is just as real. It only depends on what you measure against. So here they are. Against the ground: about one thousand and forty miles an hour at the equator, less where you live. Against the Sun: sixty-six thousand six hundred.
Against the centre of the galaxy: about five hundred and fifty thousand. Against the oldest light in the universe: about eight hundred and thirty thousand. During this video, you travelled about one hundred and ten thousand miles around the galaxy. Almost half way to the Moon. In eighty years, about three hundred and ninety billion miles. And that is still less than seven percent of one light-year. All of this happens inside one galaxy, and we have never seen it from the outside.
Every picture of the Milky Way from outside is a painting. So what does our galaxy actually look like, measured, star by star? If this was worth your time, subscribe.