Can someone help me to understand why is it when you see a picture sent back from outer space of real time of the earth that you can see it as countries and clouds etc and over watch day and night as they cross the time zones yet the earth is spinning at so many thousand miles per hour? Is it going so fast that to human perception it seems to be virtually still?

It's just math. From outer space, you see the earth rotate once every 24 hrs, which comes out to 0.25 degrees per minute, which is why it appears stationary which looking it at from outer space. The earth circumference equals 24900 miles, which yields a tangential velocity of 1037 miles/hour. Thus, you can have the earth spinning at over 1000 miles/hour and yet appear stationary when viewed from space.

Thanks for your reply, ive been arguing with my friend about different theories, i understand it now. Are there any planets in the universe small enough for you to observe spinning?

Emma
xxxxx

I think the reason the earth is spinning so "fast", is due to its mass. If the Earth was tiny but spinning the same speed, it would still seem stationary. I maybe wrong though

it has nothing to do with the earth's mass. The fact that the earth rotates once every 24 hrs, which comes out to 0.25 degrees per minute, is what accounts for it appearing stationary from space.