Days on Earth are getting shorter. Or maybe they're getting longer? It's complicated.
As confusing and changeable as the world can be, there are some comforting certainties: The sun rises in the east, summer follows spring, and a day lasts for 24 hours. Right? Unfortunately, not even these basic tenets of life on Earth are set in concrete. In recent years, researchers have noticed that days on Earth are getting shorter, and no one knows exactly why.
A day is a period in which Earth makes a complete rotation around its axis. Although this averages out at 24 hours, the speed of this spin can actually increase or decrease, which effectively shortens or lengthens days. It is the increasing spin rate of the Earth that is causing days to shorten, as they have generally done in the order of milliseconds per year since 2019.
On Earth, there is the effect of the moon’s gravity to consider, which creates the tides and over time has been slowing the Earth’s rotation due to friction. But there are also processes working in the other direction to speed its rotation up.
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