Scientists have concluded that the speed of Mars is increasing, without knowing the main reason for this. Shifts in the planet's mass can cause it to speed up, NASA says, as it moves somewhat like a figure skater spinning with his arms outstretched and then pulling his arms in.
According to the British “Sky News” network, scientists discovered the shift in rotational speed using data from NASA’s “Insight” probe, which worked for four years until it ran out of power last December.
According to the probe's data, the rotation of Mars is accelerating every year by about 4 milliseconds. He added that the "historical experience" was just the tip of the iceberg, there was still "a lot to unearth" and more information would be excavated for years to come.
The differences were "a few tens of centimeters over the course of a Martian year," said Sebastien Le Maistre, lead author of a paper documenting the findings in the journal Nature. "It takes a very long time and a lot of data to accumulate before we can even see these differences."
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