The longest journey you have ever taken
Even if you have never left your home town, you have travelled an enormous distance. The Earth carries you around the Sun at almost 30 kilometres every second, and it never stops. In one year that adds up to about 940 million kilometres, and over a lifetime it runs into tens of billions. The spring above draws your journey as a coil, one turn for every lap you have completed, with the current lap still being drawn.
The live counter shows the distance growing in real time. Leave the page open for a minute and you will have covered more than 1,700 kilometres, further than the flight from London to Rome.
How we calculate it
The Earth’s orbit is almost a circle with an average radius of 149.6 million kilometres. Its length is about 940 million kilometres, and the Earth takes 365.256 days to go round once. That works out at about 2.57 million kilometres a day, or 29.78 kilometres a second. We multiply that daily distance by the number of days, and the fraction of today, since you were born. The real speed varies by about 3% over the year, but the average is what matters over a lifetime.
| Time | Distance around the Sun | In miles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 1,787 km | 1,110 miles |
| 1 hour | 107,200 km | 66,600 miles |
| 1 day | 2.57 million km | 1.6 million miles |
| 1 year | 940 million km | 584 million miles |
| 80 years | 75 billion km | 47 billion miles |
Worked example. Someone born on 12 April 1990 had been alive for 13,350 days on 30 October 2026. At 2.57 million kilometres a day, they had travelled about 34.4 billion kilometres around the Sun, or 21.3 billion miles, in 36.5 laps. That is enough to go to the Sun and back 114 times.
Fastest in January
The Earth’s orbit is slightly stretched, and the planet moves fastest when it is closest to the Sun, in early January, and slowest in early July. So people in the northern hemisphere are actually nearest the Sun in midwinter. The seasons come from the tilt of the Earth’s axis, not from the distance.
Questions people ask
How fast is the Earth moving around the Sun?
On average 29.78 kilometres per second, which is about 107,200 km/h or 66,600 mph. It speeds up to about 30.3 km/s in early January, when the Earth is closest to the Sun, and slows to about 29.3 km/s in early July.
How far is one lap?
The Earth’s orbit is about 940 million kilometres around, or 584 million miles. It takes 365.256 days to complete, which is one sidereal year.
Why don’t we feel the speed?
Because everything around us moves with us at the same steady speed. You only feel changes in speed or direction, and the Earth’s path curves so gently that the change is far too small to notice.
Does this include the Earth’s spin or the Sun’s motion through the galaxy?
No. This page counts only the trip around the Sun. For the bigger picture, including the Sun’s journey around the Milky Way, try the trip through the galaxy calculator.
Sources. NASA Planetary Fact Sheet: Earth (mean orbital velocity 29.78 km/s, sidereal year 365.256 days, semi-major axis 149.6 million km). Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.