Hey folks… this is gonna sound REALLYY dumb… but… I can’t seem to wrap my brain around the correct concept here… any help for a newbie? Here’s my question…
If Astronauts circle the globe once every 90 minutes, haven’t we, on the planet surface aged 24 hours during that time? What I’m suggesting is obvious, and I know it can’t be right, but why doesn’t it work out that way?
I’m probably gonna get flamed for asking such a dumb question, but I’m losing sleep and desparate… help!!
Thanks everyone…
Nah, we don’t flame here for asking questions, no matter how dumb. 
To answer your question, no. Effects of relativity aside, we age 90 minutes here on earth, same as the astronauts in orbit. In short, 90 minutes is 90 minutes. Remember, the space vehichle the astronauts are in is moving much faster than a fixed on the ground.
No flames here, sorry…
Until the astronauts approach relativistic speeds, their time is the same as ours. The fact that they circle the globe in 90 minutes doesn’t mean that the earth completed a total revolution in that time. The earth turned some (about 22 degrees) but didn’t complete a day’s revolution.
Picture it like this: say you’re walking around a track at one lap per hour. A jogger runs past you at 10 laps/hour and pretty soon he catches up an passes you again. You’ve only gone around 1/10th of the track between the two times he passed you. The fact that he passed you doesn’t count as a whole lap for you, so only six minutes passed for each of you.
Ahhhh… my brain is beginning to wrap around it now… I wasn’t thinking about how much the earth was turning …lol
Thanks for not flaming… I’m squeamish when it comes to burns…
Not quite, micco. Gravity plays a role in the passage of time, per relativity:
[quote]
According to Einstein’s theory of gravity and space-time – called “general relativity” – clocks in strong gravity tick slower than clocks in weak gravity. Because gravity is weaker on the ISS than at Earth’s surface, PARCS should accumulate an extra second every 10,000 years compared to clocks ticking on the planet below. PARCS won’t be there that long, but the clock is so stable that it will reveal this effect in less than one year.**
From [url=http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/08apr_atomicclock.htm[this article.
Oops. Fixed link
Welcome aboard Bootieman. Just as an FYI, when you start a thread you should make the title more descriptive to the question. Generic titles may not attract the members with knowledge of a specific topic to read your thread.
A Mod may stop by and change the title for you.
Anyway, it takes the Earth 24 hours to circle the sun. A space craft orbiting the Earth in 90 mins is still 90 mins in Earth time.
I think the better question is if the space craft circled the sun in 90 mins would they have aged a day?
Sorry for my negligence. Next time I won’t bother to reply until I’ve composed a completely thorough and referenced thesis. I foolishly believed a simple analogy would be more helpful than a discourse on relativity.
Huh? Go have some coffee. I’ll wait while you figure out what’s wrong with that sentence.
We’ll all let you think about that for a few minutes before the pile-on starts!
Relativistic quibbles aside, motion around the sun has nothing whatsoever to do with the passage of time. The earth’s rotation about its axis and about the sun are simply mechanisms we use to measure time. You could move arbitrarily through the universe and time would still pass.
Oh, I may have spoken too late!
I wasn’t aware of the whole 24 hours to orbit the sun thing…
I think Micco made a lot of sense in layman’s terms (which is what I needed… or a swift kick in the pants…lol) If I stood at one spot lets say… Portland, Maine and watched the shuttle fly over head…
90 minutes later, I’d get to watch it fly over me again… assuming the same trajectory, and I’d have aged 90 minutes… simple when put into simple terms that I can understad… duh!!..
Thanks all!!
Ohhh and I will try and remember to be more desriptive in my headers… 
:smack: Doh!! 24 hours, 3651/4 days. What’s the difference.
See what happens when you don’t title threads correctly.
And a good, thing, too, since it ain’t so. The Earth takes one year to orbit the sun. It takes 24 hours to spin around once on its own axis.
But you’ve clearly grasped the answer to your original question, so as long as you can ignore whatever misinformation has been tossed your way, you’ll be just fine!
The earth doesn’t orbit the sun in 24 hours. I think what NYR407 was trying to say is sun appears to go around the Earth in 24 hours from the point of view of an observer on the ground, but his tang got all tonguled up.
The time it takes for the earth to orbit the sun is called a year.
Well, I guess 24 hours in Queens just seems like a year.
I thought it took earth 364.25 days to orbit the sun.
FYI it’s spelled Bootyman (booty as in arse right?)
And my apologies, micco if I came off sounding snarky. I was merely trying to point out for those interested that it’s the gravity difference, rather than the velocity, that creates the relativistic time difference you and I alluded to.