While many prepare for holidays, perhaps staying out until late in the evening to enjoy the sunset, almost nobody realized that the days are shorteningeven if in an almost imperceptible way. The result of a scientific study published by the specialized magazine National Geographic He left many of stucco: on July 9 it was the shorter day of the year, given that the earth has shot faster than usual. The difference was really minimal, 1.34 milliseconds, but the phenomenon did not go unnoticed and the next August 5th. To interest the American scientists are the reasons behind this very light increase in the rotation speed of the planet and their effect on technologies that we are now used to as the GPS system.
Because the earth turns faster
According to Nicholas Stamatakos, astronomer of the US Naval Observatory, “In the last decade the average length of the day has reduced. The phenomenon has accentuated in the last 5 years, reducing the day under the canonical 24 hours”. The reasons for these variations are manifold but largely the acceleration is due to tide forces Between the earth and the moon, which twice a month give a push to our planet. Instead, the role of the liquid hazel of the earth, which behaves in a strange way: for still unknown reasons, the center of our planet turns more slowly For almost 50 years, which would have caused the increase in the speed of the upper layers. The phenomenon is still inexplicable: the geophysicist Duncan Agnew admits that “We don’t know what the core could do in the future”. Since we are talking about microscopic differences, scientists have been able to measure these speed changes only by the introduction of the atomic watches In 1955 but, in reality, the land in the past turned much faster than now.
Before the formation of the moon, one day it lasted only ten hours but gravitational interactions contributed to slowing down the rotation of the earth in a minimal but constant way. At the time of the dinosaurs, the days were more court than thirty minutes And the earth turned around the sun in 372 and not 365 days. According to Agnew, these short -term fluctuations are not new at all, since from 1865 to 1880 even shorter days would occur. These tiny variations are completely imperceptible, since we are talking about a time interval 100 times lower than a beating of eyelashes but are still important for astronomers, who need incredibly precise measurements. To avoid problems, since 1972 the official watches introduce One second more Every year and a half to make the time measured by atomic watches coincide with the astronomical one. Since then, 27 seconds have been added.
Because it is important for GPS
These variations in the rotation of the earth were unknown until atomic watches began to measure time with an almost absolute precision. The acceleration of the land observed recently will force the managers of the official time a Remove a second for the first time In 2029. Many Internet services need absolute precision and even minimal errors can cause problems, as happened in 2012 with Linux -based computers. Remove a second could tilt Many systems, given that such an event has never occurred before. Understanding the reasons behind these variations is extremely difficult: if there are some studies that have tried to blame the climate changewhich would be slowing down the planet, there are many of the opposite sign.
The system that could undergo the heaviest consequences from these variations is what has become increasingly indispensable for all of us over the years: the global navigation system GPS. Cars, smartphones, planes and ships calculate their position on the planet by measuring the infinitesimal differences between the atomic watches mounted on the satellites in orbit but they take for granted that one day it lasts exactly 24 hours.
Even minimal differences could cause errors But, according to experts, nobody is able to predict how much it will last one day in the future. According to Stamatakos “It is not possible to precisely predict the duration of one day over six months. We simply do not know enough about all these phenomena”.