Four journeys at once
Right now you are spinning with the Earth, circling the Sun, sweeping around the centre of the Milky Way with the whole Solar System, and drifting with our galaxy through the wider universe. Each motion is enormous on its own. The Earth’s spin moves people in mid-latitudes at over 1,200 km/h. The orbit around the Sun adds almost 30 kilometres every second. The Sun’s path around the galaxy is roughly eight times faster again, at about 230 kilometres per second. Tap any motion above to see how far it has carried you since the day you were born.
The picture shows the Milky Way from above, with the Sun about 26,000 light-years from the centre. Even a whole human lifetime is a tiny arc on that scale: the Sun needs about 230 million years to complete one lap.
How we calculate it
For each motion we multiply its speed by the time since your birth. The Earth’s spin speed depends on latitude: it is 1,674 km/h at the equator multiplied by the cosine of your latitude. The orbit around the Sun averages 29.78 km/s. For the Sun’s orbit of the galaxy we use 230 km/s, a middle value of recent measurements. Our motion relative to the cosmic microwave background, about 370 km/s, is the closest thing there is to an overall speed through the universe, because it already combines all the other motions.
| Motion | Speed | Distance in one day |
|---|---|---|
| Earth’s spin at 40° | 1,283 km/h | 30,800 km |
| Earth around the Sun | 29.8 km/s | 2.57 million km |
| Sun around the galaxy | 230 km/s | 19.9 million km |
| Relative to the cosmic background | 370 km/s | 32 million km |
Worked example. Someone born on 12 April 1990 had been alive for 13,350 days on 30 October 2026. At 230 km/s the Sun carried them about 265 billion kilometres around the Milky Way. That is roughly 10 light-days, yet only about 0.00000016 of one full lap of the galaxy.
A sense of scale
The last time the Sun was in its current spot in the galaxy, about 230 million years ago, the first dinosaurs were only just appearing. Since the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago, the Sun has travelled less than a third of the way round. On that clock, all of recorded human history fits into the last few hundred-thousandths of a lap.
Questions people ask
How fast does the Sun move around the galaxy?
About 230 kilometres per second, although measurements range from roughly 220 to 250 km/s. At that speed the Sun takes around 230 million years to go once around the centre of the Milky Way, a stretch known as a galactic year.
Can I add all the speeds together?
Not simply. The motions point in different directions and partly cancel, so the totals are shown one by one. The single best overall figure is our speed relative to the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang, which is about 370 km/s for the Sun.
Why does my latitude change the spin speed?
Everyone goes round once a day, but people near the equator travel a much bigger circle than people near the poles. At the equator the ground moves at about 1,670 km/h; at 50 degrees north or south it is about 1,080 km/h.
How many times has the Sun gone around the galaxy?
The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, so it has made roughly 20 laps. The last time it was where it is now, the first dinosaurs had not yet appeared.
Sources. NASA Planetary Fact Sheet; Gaia and VLBI estimates of the Sun’s galactic orbital speed (about 230 km/s); Planck Collaboration, CMB dipole (369.8 km/s). Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.