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TIL CreativesEarth has been rotating faster than usual on its axis since 2020, leading to shorter days.
Earth has been rotating faster than usual on its axis since 2020, leading to shorter days. It’s not that our planet鈥檚 speed is going to make a significant difference, but the concern revolves around the unidentified reasons leading to this phenomenon.Things began changing five years ago in 2020 when the days started to get shorter. Now in 2025, a point has come when the record for the shortest day is knocking at our doors. The phenomenon is being studied by astrophysicist Graham Jones, and he has predicted the next shortest day on three possible dates: July 9, July 22, or August 5, 2025.Now it is important to understand that when we speak of days getting shorter, it doesn’t mean by minutes or hours but by a few milliseconds. The length by which the days are going to get shorter is insignificant, but what holds the key is the unexplained reasons. What fuels the curiosity further is that until recently, the planet was spinning slower and slower.Earth鈥檚 variable speed, and how is it measured?Earth rotates on its axis and completes a full rotation in exactly 86,400 seconds; in other words, its length is 24 hours. A change of a millisecond (ms) is 0.001 seconds less than a blink of an eye, which lasts around 100 milliseconds.Live EventsDuring the 1950s, atomic clocks came into existence, measuring tiny day-to-day variations in Earth鈥檚 spin speed. The number of milliseconds above or below 86,400 seconds is known as length of day (LOD).Earth gathers speed after 2020Until 2020, when our planet was rotating slower and slower. The shortest LOD ever recorded by atomic clocks was -1.05 ms, which signified that Earth completed one rotation with respect to the Sun in 1.05 milliseconds less than 86,400 seconds.From that point there was no looking back, as the Earth kept on gaining speed and broke this old record every year by approximately half a millisecond. The shortest day of all was -1.66 ms on July 5, 2024. Earth is likely to get close to this again in 2025 around July 9, July 22, and August 5 with predicted LOD on these three days is predicted to be -1.30 ms, -1.38 ms and -1.51 ms respectively.Why is this happening?Scientists still struggle to give a concrete explanation for this, but the predicted dates for 2025 do coincide with the times when the Moon鈥檚 orbit places it at its furthest point from Earth鈥檚 equator, and this has an impact on our planet.Several studies have suggested that the Moon has been slowing Earth鈥檚 rotation for billions of years. The gravitational pull of the Moon impacts the Earth鈥檚 angular momentum, hence controlling the variations in the LOD. Notably, long-term variations in the spin speed of our planet are also likely affected by other factors, including the complex motion of Earth鈥檚 core, oceans, and atmosphere.(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
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(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)Read More News onEarth rotation speed2025 shortest day datesshortest day predictionhow fast is the Earth spinningvariable speed of Earth(Catch all the US News, UK News, Canada News, International Breaking News Events, and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily International News Updates….moreless