AREQUIPA, Peru – One day, 24 hours, is the time it takes the Earth to make a complete rotation on its axis. It has been that way for centuries, but it was not always that way and it may not always be that way.
A report from the scientific media Very interesting Remember that during the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs existed, the day did not last 24 hours, but rather 23.
In earlier times, the Earth rotated faster than it does today and the pull exerted by the Moon on it was weaker. For this reason, for more than 1,000 years, the Earth rotated faster than it does today. millions of yearsthe length of the Earth’s day was 19.5 hours.
When our planet was created, some 4.5 billion years ago, an Earth day lasted approximately 10 hours because its rotation was much faster than today.
In the future, the reason why days are longer will bethe moonwhich is gradually moving away from Earth and its gravitational impact is having consequences on the planet’s rotation.
The fact is related to the tidal pull of the Moon on the oceans and the tidal pull of the Sun on the Earth’s atmosphere. According to scientific estimates, in about 200 million years, days could be 25 hours long. The study constitutes an important advance in the understanding of the Earth’s rotation through rotational dynamics.
Ulrich Schreiber, project leader at the Observatory of the Technical University of Munich, published the findings of the research in the journal Nature Photonics.
“Rotation fluctuations are not only important for astronomy, we also urgently need them to create accurate climate models and better understand meteorological phenomena such as El Niño (…) And the more precise the data, the more accurate the predictions will be,” the expert stressed.
The first time the early Earth spun, it did so with an initial speed that depended on the force with which the dust, rocks and gas orbiting the Sun collided to form our planet.
Currently, the exact time it takes the world to complete a single rotation can vary by small fractions of milliseconds each year due to various factors such as the movements of tectonic plates, changes in the rotation of the inner core, or the gravitational pull of the Moon.
