Movement

I’m having that illusion again—the one you get while sitting in a parked car. You know it: you’re certain something is moving, but you’re not sure who. I’ve checked the parked car across the street at least ten times. I even marked the position of its hubcaps against my window frame as a reference.

Still, somehow, that invisible driver manages to return the car to the exact same spot every time I look away. I don’t know how he does it. Must have very fast reflexes.

But I know there’s movement. It’s a scientific fact: even when we believe we are perfectly still, we are hurtling through space at roughly 43,000 miles per hour—toward Vega.

That’s me. That’s you. That’s the Earth, the Moon, the whole solar system. And of course, Vega isn’t stationary either.

Come to think of it, we’re also orbiting the Sun at 66,000 miles per hour, so for half the year we could add those speeds—almost 110,000 miles per hour toward Vega (unless we’re orbiting sideways, in which case I don’t know what to tell you). The other half of the year we’re technically in retrograde, so maybe we’re backing away from Vega at 23,000 miles per hour.

Then there’s our own planetary spin: 1,000 miles per hour at the equator. Petty, perhaps, compared to the cosmic scale—but still, 1,000 miles per hour should require a windscreen.

But we’re not done. The entire solar system is rotating around the center of the Milky Way at about 483,000 miles per hour. So, potentially, for at least some portion of galactic history, we are moving at nearly 600,000 miles per hour.

And if everything lines up just right—if the spiraling of the galaxy stacks with our solar trajectory and the residual momentum of the Big Bang—then yes, it is just barely possible that you, me, and that very suspicious parked car across the street… are traveling at over 1.9 million miles per hour.

Which totally makes sense now.

I knew that invisible driver moved fast.

I just didn’t know how fast.