Why does the earth rotate faster at the Equator?

1 Answer
Mar 29, 2015

It doesn't. Everywhere on Earth we make a complete circle every 24 hours.

The difference lies in the surface speed. At the equator we travel approx. 40000 km in those 24 hours. This is 1667 km/h. If we go farther north, the circle we travel becomes smaller. At 60 degrees North we travel only half the distance, so our speed goes down to 833 km/h, because it still takes 24 hours.

At the poles, we wouldn't really be travelling. We would just make a complete turn around our axis in those same 24 hours.