Earth just spun faster than normal and it is DANGEROUS for us
On July 29, the Earth did something strange. It completed one full rotation along its axis around 1.59 milliseconds earlier than its scheduled time. This made the day officially the shortest day in observable history. And while this is the fastest the Earth has completed its full rotation, the trend of its accelerating speed is not new. The previous crown-holder for the shortest day belonged to July 19, 2020 when our planet completed the day 1.47 milliseconds faster. The year 2021 also witnessed a similar speeding incident but it did not break any records. Scientists are worried this continuing trend can have disastrous consequences on us, although we may not be able to realize it right now. Read on to know what they are.
It was first reported by TimeAndDate.com that the Earth created history by completing its fastest spin ever. It should be noted that when we say ‘shortest day', we do not mean the solar day which takes 24 hours to see the Sun in the same location in the sky. The time the Earth generally takes to complete one spin across its axis is called a sidereal day and it is defined as 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds. This is calculated with respect to distant stars. And because we know these times, calculating the speed of Earth's spin is possible.
According to a report by Interesting Engineering, the long term consequences of this trend of Earth spinning faster can be concerning. And the biggest victim of this will be GPS satellites which use atomic clocks. Atomic clocks do not take Earth's increasing speed into consideration. As a result, if the Earth keeps increasing its speed and completes its rotation earlier than expected, then the atomic clocks become completely obsolete.
The GPS satellites are majorly
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
