Is it true that the earth began to rotate faster?

There is an opinion that the rotation of our planet has accelerated in recent years. We decided to check if this is so and what it threatens for us.

Scientists They thinkthat the so -called big explosion not only created our planet, but also set its rotation. Since then, it continues by inertia-and will continue until something stops it. However, as with any inertia, the speed of rotation of the Earth gradually decreases. Exploring the fossil corals, scientists came to conclusionThat hundreds of millions of years ago, in order to make a turn around the sun, the earth needed not 365 days, as it is now, but more than 400. That is, in a year it managed to turn around its axis several tens of times more, which means it rotated much faster, and over time slowed down.

If we talk not about hundreds of millions of years, but about any visible term, the speed of rotation of the Earth is so noticeable, of course, will not change. Strictly speaking, she It changes Constantly, but deviations are so small that for an ordinary person they are completely invisible. To make a full revolution around its axis, our planet requires about 86,400 seconds. But sometimes a little more, and sometimes a little less.

How do scientists understand that the Earth has accelerated or slowed down? 

There are several scales of time, in particular, astronomical and atomic. Astronomical The system counts the time in accordance with the actual rotation of the Earth (this is the so -called "World time" - UT1). UT1 is calculated by the corner of the Earth’s rotation relative to the quasars - one of the most striking objects of the visible universe. Atomic The clock does not depend on any external conditions, it is a high-precision device that takes a certain number of changes in the state of the substance atom (the cesium-133 atom is adopted in a second). It is the second at the atomic clock Enters In the international system of units. The time by which a person lives in a particular time zone is determined through the universal coordinated time (UTC). For example, Moscow time is UTC+3, and the New York is the UTC-5. And this time is also measured by atomic clock. Sometimes astronomical time does not coincide with atomic - and scientists understand that the speed of the earth has changed. Distishes are calculated by milliseconds, that is, a person without special equipment will not be able to notice this.

Experts of the portal Time and Date, devoted to the study of time and time zones, wrote that 2020 He was the shortest in the history of observations (it has been conducted from about the beginning of the 1960s). This year was the largest number of short days. Until 2020, the shortest day was considered July 5, 2005, when the Earth turned around its axis 1.05 milliseconds faster than the “standard” of 86,400 seconds. In 2020, there were as many as 28 days, which surpassed the 2005 indicator, and the shortest was July 19, when 1.46 milliseconds “fell” from the day. It was already predicted that 2021 It would be even shorter, and he met expectations, having broken the record of the 2020: the Earth made its set 365 revolutions at 65 milliseconds faster than it should. That is, only last year, UT1 and UTC were filled with another 0.065 seconds.

Similar discrepancies happened And before - only the other way around, the atomic clock went forward, and the Earth "lagged behind." This is explained precisely by the fact that the rotation of our planet tends to slow down. When the total discrepancy approached 0.9 seconds, the atomic clock was calibrated: they added one leap for a second. Since the 1970s, this has happened every 2-3 years, but the last time the atomic clock was "translated" on New Year's Eve from 2016 to 2017, and more than a second did not appear. Now the trend has changed and, according to some researchers, if it continues, then by 2026 it will be necessary not to add one second to UTC for the first time, but to take it away.

Why did the Earth accelerate rotation, despite the quite logical tendency to slow down? Scientists identify several reasons. One of them is a change climate, in particular, an increase in the temperature of the oceans and, as a result, melting glaciers. It was previously noted that in those years when the average temperature of the Earth increased markedly, the speed of the planet was also higher. Another possible reason that the researchers from NASA nominated is Winds And strong storms. Influences on the speed of rotation of the earth and a change in its distance to the moon (and it is also constantly It changes, although the last 500 million years quite slowly - a few centimeters per year).

Of course, this will not affect the everyday life of an ordinary person, most people will not even know about this missing second. But additional or “missing” seconds can cause serious problems In those areas where the exact time is required: astronomy, navigation, space flights, computer networks. This can be reflected even at the work of stock exchanges. If the leap seconds have already been added earlier, then it was not yet necessary to take them away, and this causes some scientists from scientists fears - As a process that has not passed the test, which will be carried out for the first time, will affect the work of high -precision devices and technologies. However, a physicist from the University of Alberta (Canada) Mathieu Damberry Offers Do not panic, because he believes that the acceleration and slowing down of the Earth is cyclic processes, and sooner or later the speed of the planet rotation will return to the average 86 400 seconds.

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What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Which atomic hour? How the most accurate and obscure time to measure time works
2. The exact duration of any day
3. Did Jordano Bruno be burned for the belief that the earth is round and spin around the sun?