Earth Days Are Becoming 'Strangely Longer' and Scientists Are Confused

Atomic clocks and precise astronomical observations have demonstrated that days are abruptly growing longer and it has left several scientists confused, according to a report by SciTechDaily.

This change has a significant influence on our ability to keep accurate time as well as other precision technologies like GPS that are necessary for our daily living.

Strange Slowdown

Over the past few decades, the rate of Earth's rotation around its axis has increased. Our days have been getting shorter because of this pattern, which influences how long a day is.

If you can recall, we have already broken the record for the shortest day in the last 50 years, in June 2022.

Despite this record, the progressive speedup that began in 2020 has strangely turned into a slowdown. Earth days have become longer again, and the cause is still unknown.

Due to friction from the tides caused by the Moon, Earth's rotation has slowed over millions of years. This process lengthens each day by around 2.3 milliseconds per 100 years.

The relationship between the interior and surface of the Earth is also important. In fact, the duration of the day can be altered by powerful earthquakes, but usually only slightly.

For instance, the magnitude 8.9 Great Thoku Earthquake in Japan in 2011 is thought to have accelerated Earth's rotation by only 1.8 microseconds.

The "Chandler wobble," a little variation in the Earth's rotating axis with a period of around 430 days, is another theory believed by scientists to be responsible for the planet's recent enigmatic change in rotational speed.

According to SciTech Daily's report, radio telescope observations indicate that the wobble has recently decreased. Hence, there could be a connection between the two, but for now, it remains a theory.

How Does This Affect Technology?

Ever since scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in England recorded the shortest day they experienced, there have been concerns about how the Earth's rotation change would affect the environment.

However, tech companies are also worried because leap seconds can affect their online platforms.

Recently, Meta decided to join other tech companies in calling for the elimination of leap seconds. Leap seconds have already been used 27 times in recent years. According to Meta, this is sufficient.

Numerous internet platforms have already been impacted by the most recent leap seconds rule. A lot of websites were offline in 2012 as a result of the abrupt time change around the world.

These include the Australian airline Qantas, Reddit, and Gawker. However, Cloudfare also faced issues with the 2017 leap second.

As a result, numerous internet platforms created technology that enables them to change their time if there are unexpected leap seconds instantly.

However, these methods only work for positive leap seconds (longer time changes).

"The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers," Meta wrote in a blog post.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla