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Every 24 hours, the Earth completes a rotation on its axiswhat marks a day on our planet. This period of reliable rotation is what allowed humans to develop time measurement systems and establish, for example, the Gregorian calendar.
But the Earth’s rotation was not always so constant. In fact, a long time ago, the day on our planet was much shorter. “The Earth experienced shorter and longer days than now at different times in history. Most importantly, it was affected by tidal interactions with the Moon. About a billion years ago, the length of the day was barely 19 hours,” he assured Live Science Sarah Millholland, associate professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
However, Now, according to the expert, the days could be getting longer: “In this sense, climate change could influence due to the redistribution of the Earth’s mass due to the melting of glaciers, changes in sea level and tectonic activity.”
Although this is nothing to worry about, since scientists believe that This phenomenon will happen within the next 250 million years“As the polar caps melt, the rotation slows.” This slowdown would lengthen the days by around 1.7 milliseconds every hundred years.
Konstantin Batygin, professor of planetary science at Caltechhe explained to the scientific journal: “The change in the Earth’s rotation speed is occurring so gradually that evolutionary processes can adapt to changes over time. The relative modification in orbital speed would not be perceptible in daily life.” Batygin mentioned that it could take 200 million years for the day to last 25 hours.The expert believes that the main reason for the slowdown of the Earth’s rotation is its relationship with the Moon, but that is not news to us.
A 2018 study, co-written by Professor Stephen Myers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that days were actually only 18 hours long 1.4 billion years ago, as opposed to 24 hours now.
Since the Moon was previously closer to Earth, the effect of its gravity was stronger., thus causing a much faster rotation of the planet, giving rise to the 18-hour day. “As the Moon moves away, the Earth is like a figure skater who spins and slows down as she stretches her arms,” Myers wrote. So if 1.4 billion years ago it lasted 18 hours, it seems highly unlikely that we will feel the slow change in the length of the day for another billion years.
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