https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...evidence-earth-round-and-rotating/8267678001/
Most scientists
estimate the Earth to be rotating around 1,000 miles per hour on its axis.
Proof of this includes the
Coriolis force. This force explains why planes cannot simply travel in a straight line to their destination, but instead must fly along a curved route. Because the Earth rotates so rapidly, flying in a straight line would result in the plane ending up in the wrong location. The Earth is always moving, so pilots must account for how much their destination will have rotated since the start of the flight.
This effect also impacts hurricanes, which swirl
counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, said
Jason Steffen, a mathematician and physicist at the University of Nevada. If the Earth were on a flat plane, this mirroring across the equator would not occur, he said. The rotation around the Earth's access and the subsequent Coriolis forces cause these differences to occur.