Experts predict that the length of days on Earth are going to get longer and longer
Our days could get a lot longer in the future thanks to the Earth's rotation
It’s another day on Earth and that means another scientist has discovered something that changes the way we live our lives.
Since it came to light that our planet is going to have longer days, scientists have now made predictions about how lengthy these days will become.
The experts have predicted that life could potentially change with things like climate change heading for a ‘triple whammy’ extinction event.
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Don’t freak out just yet - they think it’ll happen within the next 250 million years, not tomorrow.
Sarah Millholland, Assistant Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Live Science: "Earth has experienced days that were both shorter and longer than it is now at different points in history.
“Most importantly, it was affected by tidal interactions with the Moon. About a billion years ago, the length of day was only about 19 hours.”
“Climate change could also play a role due to redistribution of Earth’s mass due to glacial melting, sea level changes and tectonic activity,” Millholland added.
“As the polar ice caps melt, the rotation is slowing down.”
Other experts argue that, at one point, Earth may have rotated in just 10 hours.
However, now the opposite is happening and as our planet's rotation changes, it’s slowing down and lengthening by around 1.7 milliseconds every 100 years.
Konstantin Batygin, of Caltech, explained: “The change in Earth's spin rate is happening gradually enough that evolutionary processes can adapt to the changes over time. The relative change in orbital speed would not be noticeable in daily life.”
Batygin believes that the main reason for Earth's slowing rotation is because of its relationship with the Moon - but that’s nothing new to us.
A 2018 study, co-authored by Professor Stephen Myers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that days (which, for those of you who don't remember science lessons at school, are calculated by the amount of time that it takes the Earth to rotate once on its axis) were actually only 18 hours long 1.4 billion years ago, as opposed to 24 hours now.
As the Moon was previously closer to the Earth, the effect of its gravity was stronger, thus it caused a much faster rotation of the Earth, resulting in the 18-hour day.
"As the Moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out,” Myers said.
So… if it was 18 hours long 1.4 billion years ago, it seems it's highly unlikely we’re going to feel the slow change in day extension for another billion years.
Britt Jones