When you’re standing on Earth’s surface, it’s easy to forget that our planet is hurtling around the sun at more than 67,000 mph (107,800 km/h). And it’s even easier to forget that there are seven other planets also making their way around our home star at similar breakneck speeds, or that all eight have been ceaselessly circling the solar system for billions of years.
But what might really blow your mind is finding out how many trips around the sun each planet has under its belt. This may seem like a tricky thing to calculate, but because the planets’ orbits have remained largely unaltered for most of their existence, all it takes is a bit of basic math.
Our planet takes a year to orbit the sun and has existed for 4.5 billion years, so it has taken roughly 4.5 billion trips around the solar system.
Mind blowing
Well, the interesting part is that the planet’s orbit has been stable for almost all of its existence. That not something I expected since things like a day have been slowly shifting over that same time frame.
Well, that’s the moon’s fault. Speaking of the moon, when did Earth collide with Theia? Did that affect our orbit?