text: what causes the earth to rotate and orbit? why is the sky blue? our everyday experience teaches us that an object must be "pushed" by a force in order to keep it moving. otherwise, it will slow down and eventually stop. but this intuition is absolutely wrong. if an object is moving, then a force is required *to slow it down or stop it*, not to keep it moving. (hence, "objects in motion tend to stay in motion. objects at rest tend to stay at rest.") in our everyday experience, it's the force of friction that tends to stop earth-bound objects from moving forever. but for the earth rotating on its axis, there is no force working to counteract the rotation (except the tidal effect of the moon, but that's working very slowly), so you don't need to have any input energy to keep it spinning.