What is the moment of inertia of the earth?
Answer:
\(I \approx 9.736 \times 10^{37} \mathrm{kgm}^{2}\)
Explanation:
If we think of the earth as a solid sphere rotating about its center, the moment of inertia is given by:
where \(M\) is the mass of the earth and \(R\) is its radius
We are given the following information:
- \(\mapsto M=5.98 \times 10^{24} \mathrm{~kg}\)
- \(\mapsto R=6.38 \times 10^{6} \mathrm{~m}\)
Substituting these values into the equation above: