This summer Earth experienced the shortest day in its history due to the fastest rotation speed ever recorded.. Experts say this is likely thanks to a wobble that allows it to complete a spin on its axis in less than a second than normal.
Specifically, on June 29, 2022, the planet made a full rotation. 1.59 milliseconds less than normal 24 hours (86,400 seconds), according to the website time and date.com. And this July was about to break the barrier: July 26 was 1.50 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours.
To measure the actual length of a day, scientists determine the exact rotation rate of the Earth by measuring the exact times a fixed star passes through a specific place in the sky each day.
this is not the first
And indeed, Earth has stepped up its pace in recent years. In 2020, our planet had its shortest measured month since the 1960s. As if it wanted to end that pandemic year faster, Earth spins faster than normal in 2020. In fact, our planet broke the previous record for the shortest astronomical day, set in 2005.
The shortest day of that year, July 5, saw the Earth complete a rotation of 1.0516 milliseconds faster than 86,400 seconds; this is the time it takes for it to rotate relative to the Sun, ie 24 hours or an average solar day. Instead, the shortest day of 2020 was July 19, when the planet completed the rotation 1.4602 milliseconds faster than 86,400 seconds. Additionally, 2020 included the shortest 28 days since 1960. The following year, the Earth continued to spin at a generally higher rate, although it did not set a record.. Until now.
Despite recent punctuality increases, the Earth’s rotation in general is slowing down. Each century, it takes up to a few milliseconds for the Earth to complete one rotation (1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds). Still, within this general pattern, the Earth’s spin rate fluctuates. Day by day, the time it takes for the Earth to complete one rotation increases or decreases by a fraction of a millisecond. Thus, this trend has been reversed in recent years and the days have shortened.
Why is the world speeding up or slowing down?
The reason for the Earth’s different rotational speeds and thus the variable length of days is unknown, but theories abound. Most widely accepted is that this is due to several factors.
As he reported Business ContentThe rotation we experience as day and night is not always in line with its axis, the line between the north and south poles. Moreover, the planet has a bulge on the equator with the poles slightly crushedwhich means that the Earth is slightly elliptical.
there is also ocean tides and other factors that can alter the spin, such as the Moon’s gravity. Likewise, there are those who state, among other theories, that melting glaciers causes less weight at the poles. However, there are scientists who point to an apparently more accepted root cause.
On June 29, 2022, the planet made a complete revolution in 1.59 milliseconds, in less than 86,400 seconds.
Chandler’s Tremor
Experts explain why the days are getting shorter It may be related to the Chandler wobble, which is a small deviation in the Earth’s rotational axis.. According to the scientists Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard, and Nikolay Sidorenkov, who presented the hypothesis at the Asia-Oceanian Geosciences Society, this phenomenon is similar to the shaking seen when a spinning top starts to gain momentum or slows down.
The tremor was first described by the astronomer in the late 1880s. Seth Carlo Chandler observed the poles swing for 14 months. “The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three or four meters at the Earth’s surface,” Zotov said, “but it disappeared from 2017 to 2020.”
If the rapid rotation of the earth continues, could lead to the introduction of the first negative additional second in history. This would be necessary to keep civil time based on the super-steady rhythm of atomic clocks in step with solar time based on the Sun’s movement across the sky. An additional negative second means our clocks will skip a second, which can cause problems with computer systems.
To measure the true length of a day, IERS scientists determine the Earth’s exact rotation rate by measuring the exact times a fixed star passes through a specific place in the sky each day. This measurement is expressed as Universal Time (UT1), which is a type of sundial.
UT1 is then compared to the International Atomic Clock (TAI), a highly accurate time scale that combines the output of around 200 atomic clocks kept in laboratories around the world. The actual length of a day is expressed as the deviation of UT1 from TAI over 24 hours. Currently, IERS does not show any new leap seconds that are scheduled to be added.
According to the Service’s World Orientation Center leap seconds have their pros and cons. They are useful for making sure astronomical observations are in sync with the clock, but can be a nuisance for some data logging applications and telecommunications infrastructure. Some scientists at the International Telecommunication Union have proposed allowing the gap between astronomical and atomic time to widen until a “leap clock” is necessary that would minimize disruption to telecommunications.
Reference Articles:
https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/shortest-day-2022
https://www.infobae.com/america/ciencia-america/2022/08/03/la-tierra-esta-girando-mas-rapido-de-lo-normal-y-registro-su-dia-mas- short/
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