A bike on the ISS might be doing 27,600 km/h relative to Earth but the bikes on Earth are travelling at 107,000 km/h relative to the Sun. It's all about perspective.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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But is there a time that the ISS is moving in the same direction as the earth for <=134,600 km/h?
That is a situation I had not considered.
Viewed from above the north pole, the planet's rotation, orbit and the ISS's orbit are all moving in a counterclockwise direction. The ISS's orbit is inclined ~51° from the Earth's rotation, and the Earth's rotation is tilted ~23° from its orbital plane.
I think that means that Earth & the ISS never have their orbits perfectly aligned, but for our purposes that doesn't matter. All we need is for one moment in time, for the ISS's vector to line up with the Earth's, and we should get very close to that at two times of the year, where the ISS's ~~northernmost or southernmost parts of its orbit fall on the farthest point of its orbit away from the Sun. This should be true regardless of Earth's tilt at that moment.~~
( edit: on reflection, not quite true, you need the ISS's highest or lowest point relative to the plane of Earth's orbit, but it will still happen twice per year )
At those moments, the ISS is travelling with the direction of the planet, very close to parallel, and its speed relative to the Sun should approach ~134,600 km/h, unless you did the math wrong, I didn't check that.
In this same orbit the ISS should also reach its slowest point, as the opposite side of its orbit should be aligned against Earth's orbit.
But also, in the premise of this idea is the admission that the bicycle is "stationary", because its speed in relation to its immediate environment is what matters, and we all know it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year Our sun travels about 825,000km/h around in the Milky Way.
But take the entire galaxy's speed into account: https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/PatriciaKong.shtml
But....then there's cosmic expansion...where everything is 'slowly' approaching light speed+ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe
ISS travels at 28,000km/ph
Earth travels at 107,826km/ph
Any bike on Earth is the fastest bike in the universe.
Earth travels at 107,826km/ph
In that reference frame, the speed of the ISS varies between 79,826 and 135,826 km/h.
I always use myself as the center of the universe. The earth moves very erratically. Calculating the position of Mars rovers is really interesting.
Yeah but the whole solar system is moving at 720,000 km/h, so all those bikes on other planets are moving just as fast.
When the ISS moves in the same direction as Earth relative to the sun than the bike on the ISS goes 135826 kph
The math ain't mathing here. If that were true, in one hour the earth would be 80,000 km away from the ISS. I looked it up and everything you said is true, but something must be lost in translation
The iss speed is relative to earth. The earth speed is probably relative to the sun. There's no common frame of reference between the two numbers.
It’s because those are relative speeds. The ISS speed is relative to the position of the earth. For the earth’s speed, I’d venture to guess it’s measuring the speed relative to either the sun or the galactic center.
The guy managed to connect button presses to letters to chain of thoughts it's fair to assume he was being sarcastic.
We can go faster, get a bike on Mercury!
This is one of those gotcha moments, but it’s intentionally misleading. Any bicycle can “become” the fastest bicycle in history under these conditions. However there isn’t a single bicycle, motorized or not that can reach that speed on its own. Not without becoming something else altogether. I honestly feel like I wasted my one minute of typing this. Congratulations.
I honestly feel like I wasted my one minute of typing this.
Good news—this one weird trick can make you the fastest typist in the universe!
It's stationary relative to its environment though
It’s been towed beyond the environment.
I mean, the front fell off.
Into another environment?
In a way, so is everything else.
Colbert didn't even break a sweat.
And yet it's not positioned for you to look out the window
Not only it's not but history expands into the future so it's probably even less so.