The shortest day in human history...the date is coming soon
Geologists and astrophysicists have announced that tomorrow may be the shortest day in human history, breaking the record set just two weeks ago. This is due to the unprecedented acceleration of the Earth's rotation. According to recent data, the Earth rotated faster on July 10, with the length of the day being 1.36 milliseconds shorter than the normal 86,400 seconds (or exactly 24 hours).
The previous record was set on July 9, when the day was 1.3 milliseconds shorter. A millisecond, or one-thousandth of a second, is an extremely small time interval that can only be measured using highly accurate atomic clocks, which monitor what is known as the "length of a day," or LOD—the time it takes the Earth to rotate completely on its axis.
Although the time difference may seem minor, scientists warn that it could have potential impacts on global positioning systems (GPS), satellites, and even globally accepted methods of measuring time.
Mysterious Causes and Continuous Acceleration
Researchers say the reason for the acceleration of Earth's rotation is still not entirely clear, but some hypotheses point to the effects of the moon's gravity, changes in the atmosphere, melting glaciers, shifts in Earth's metallic core, and a weakening of the planet's magnetic field.
Recent research from NASA has suggested that Earth may have entered an "orbital equilibrium" with the Moon, giving it a slight boost in speed. Curiously, the Earth, which in recent decades had been gradually slowing its rotation due to the Moon's gravitational pull, has begun to accelerate since 2020, with several days becoming shorter than usual. This trend is expected to result in a rare time step: the addition of a negative leap second by 2029—that is, the deletion of a second from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to align it with the Earth's faster rotation.
0 Comments