“Earth’s days may have gotten a little bit shorter since the massive earthquake in Chile, but don’t feel bad if you haven’t noticed.
The difference would be only about one-millionth of a second.
Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues calculated that Saturday’s quake shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.
The length of a day is the time it takes for the planet to complete one rotation – 86,400 seconds or 24 hours.
An earthquake can make Earth rotate faster by nudging some of its mass closer to the planet’s axis, just as ice skaters can speed up their spins by pulling in their arms. Conversely, a quake can slow the rotation and lengthen the day if it redistributes mass away from that axis, Gross said Tuesday.”
Read more at Yahoo News (Thanks Tyler)
still not a wholly valid excuse for being late today, even though I tried
Well, well, that’s interesting. Pity it couldn’t shorten my work day by about…..oooohh….6 hours or so!
LC x
Who gives a flaming banana when people have died…
Bring on the dramatic new sci fi film where an earthquake knocks us out of the range of the sun completely (most likely starring Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves.)
One millionth of a second? I thought from the title that it would have been a significant amount. Thats a pretty powerful earthquake, but like JibJib said, people have died, so none of it really matters. That sucks
Not only that, NASA informed that the earthquake caused the axis of the earth to move 8 cms! That’s a lot.
But JibJib is right, there are still many people suffering and we should worry about them instead of this. Homeless people, without food, clothes, etc. I’m from Chile and it’s great to see how we help ourselves and how many others countries have offered help (USA, Brazil, Perú, United Kingdom, etc.). Here in Santiago we’ve filled many tracks with food and clothes for the most impaired people.
I hope this ends soon and the country comes back to normal, but I’m afraid that I’ll take 1 or 2 years to rebuilt it completely.
Very interesting. That is one for the QI elves! Talking of which, is it true we have 3 moons?
Hm, can’t see the logic of why it would go closer to its axis .. I visualize an earthquake the exact opposite. Now i have no knowledge in the field, so that might be the reason for not seeing it with them, but might not be the reason as well ofcourse. They should have put that picture in here as well .. or reasoning, why it goes closer to its axis according to them. Would be more satisfying perhaps.
Now, did someone calculate already when this shortening of a day would be visible in e.g. 1 minute on clocks .. (maybe the movements of the planet earth is under normal universal conditions already not as stable as our clocks say .. I vaguely remember something in this area .. in a way it does not make sense if all is that stable, a status quo .. not very natural .. a bit too human .. ).
Needed to refresh m y memory on development earthquakes. Can’t see completely why it would make earth go closer to its axis (its masses), or better said .. some details missing to be sure to see it the way scientists tried to see it. Does the surface always go down (or the crust underneath) before/during/after an earthquake. Instead of masses closer to its axis, or further away,it could stay the same as well I guess. Just checking some other things around the information in this report. As questions start to come up while reading.
Pft. The length of the day fluxuates constantly. Even high jet stream winds can change the length of the day.
In the physics department, this is a ‘dog bites man’ story.
The Earth isn’t a sphere. Its an oblate spheroid. Squashed, as it were. When you raise or lower points on the earth, you change its velocity of spin. And it happens all the time.
This isn\’t the first time an earthquake has caused a shift in the earths axis or shortened it\’s days….the worst one in Asia 2004 took 6.8 millionths of a second…howvever these are only estimates as geologists can\’t be exact with the estimates. Thrust earthquakes are the only earthquakes with the power to shorten earths days and alter it\’s axis, however the moon, tides and volcanic eruptions can also cause a shortening of days. So we have shorter days…i\’m more interested in the recently found phenomena of our earth shifting poles…or should i say flipping poles…when this happens fully…well lets just say it won\’t be pretty.
Chile can do nothing about it\’s earthquakes, it\’s sadly based within the ring of fire…it hold the strongest ever earthquake record ever….9.5
Seen Derren at Bristol Hippodrome 4th March all i can say is AMAZING!!!!!! still thinking now how he does it.
On a positive note, we’ll all weigh a little bit less!