Posted on 08/02/2022 3:50:41 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets
Ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day? Turns out, you might be onto something. Earth is rotating faster than it has in the last half-century, resulting in our days being ever-so-slightly shorter than we’re used to. And while it’s an infinitesimally small difference, it’s become a big headache for physicists, computer programmers and even stockbrokers.
Why Earth rotates
Our solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago, when a dense cloud of interstellar dust and gas collapsed in on itself and began to spin. There are vestiges of this original movement in our planet’s current rotation, thanks to angular momentum — essentially, “the tendency of the body that's rotating, to carry on rotating until something actively tries to stop it,” explains Peter Whibberley, a senior research scientist at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.
Thanks to that angular momentum, our planet has been spinning for billions of years and we experience night and day. But it hasn’t always spun at the same rate.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, Earth made about 420 rotations in the time it took to orbit the Sun; we can see evidence of how each year was jam-packed with extra days by examining the growth lines on fossil corals. Although days have gradually grown longer over time (in part because of how the moon pulls at Earth’s oceans, which slows us down a bit), during humanity’s watch, we’ve been holding steady at about 24 hours for a full rotation — which translates to about 365 rotations per trip ’round the Sun.
As scientists have improved at observing Earth’s rotation and keeping track of time, however, they've realized that we experience little fluctuations in how long it takes to make a full rotation.
(Excerpt) Read more at astronomy.com ...
The Democrats suck so much it is equalizing the extra spin.
Well, if Luna does slow the rotation of the Earth and if the orbital distance is increasing 1.5 inches / 3.81cm per year, then Luna is 6+ feet over 50 years! Obviously it is Trump’s fault!
Sarc off!
I understand that, too. Where would the water be, if left loose? The ocean? The atmosphere? In the atmosphere, it would be higher. In the ocean, it would be part of the “hump” that the Moon is dragging on.
I’m not saying I know, and I doubt we are talking about enough mass to make a difference. If the Earth were frozen solid, though, tidal decay of its spin would stop. I envision this as a microscopic example of that.
bkmk
I’m not a physicist. I’m just an “expert on everything”.
The law of conservation of matter. I used to lose weight at work just to make my colleagues fat.
It’s caused by Jerrold Nadler sliming back-and-forth in the Capitol building.
That is an interesting claim.
I’m just a miscellaneous expert
For the scoffers out there, becoming expert is easy. Pick an arcane subject and study it intensely
Fake title by the author.
No, it is not, and the article elaborates.
Good science, bad reporting.
But the windmills will slow it down.
I don’t even know where we are.
They tell me we’re circling a star.
I’ll take their word, I don’t know.
I’m dizzy so it may be so.
Stop Man-Made Earth Rotation Change!
Don’t sell yourself short. You’re an “internet expert”. There is no higher credentialed expert except mine.
The Earth is spinning faster? I knew the news was spinning faster. I guess we need to raise taxes to find out why the Earth is spinning faster. I guess they’ll find out it is caused by Trump, Republicans , Global Climate Change, white supremacists, gun violence or evil rich people... 🤓
Oh noz, the heavier over-makeuped Trannies are going to fly off into space!
Yell with me:
SLOW THE WORLD!
We need a catchy song.
100 years ago was when car ownership began to become more common. So obviously the internal combustion engine is somehow to blame.
Once everyone is driving electric cars the problem will go away, most likely.
I know that it has been awhile since I studied physics in college, but someone explain to me how a body in motion can accelerate without benefit of energy from some outside force? If anything, the laws of entropy tell us that the Earth’s rotation should be very slightly slowing down, thus the days getting longer. And if I accept that greater mass has been concentrated away from the center of rotation, then the net effect should be further slowing, not acceleration.
It would be easier to accept that the means by which we can measure rotation have advanced to the point where the researchers have noted an error in the previous observations and have corrected that error.
Please. Change my mind.
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