The Earth completed one revolution in less than 24 hours marking the shortest day. (Image: iStock)
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The Earth completed one revolution in less than 24 hours marking the shortest day. (Image: iStock)
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We all get a little slower as time goes on and Earth does too, but on June 29 our planet suddenly spun faster and just set a record for shortest day. Although we cannot perceive these differences with our senses, the atomic clocks of the new era allow unprecedented data to be measured.
According to Timeanddate.com, On June 29, 2022, the Earth completed one spin in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. This is the latest in a series of Earth speed records since 2020. It marks the shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure its rotation speed.
In the long run, the Earth is supposed to spin slower and slower, as a result the days will get longer and longer. However, in recent years scientists have noticed the situation has reversed and the days have been getting shorter. If this situation continues, it may be necessary to subtract a few seconds every so often from the atomic clocks instead of adding them.
The previous record for the shortest day of all in 2020 was -1.47 milliseconds on July 19. For this year 2022 things accelerated once more establishing a new streak on June 29 with -1.59 milliseconds. Surprisingly the next time it accelerated once more to the edge of the record, reaching a difference of -1.50 milliseconds on July 26.
The timeanddate.com website it also explains that usually over long periods, the Earth’s spin slows down. Every century, the Earth takes a couple of milliseconds or so to complete one rotation (where 1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds).
“However, within this general pattern, the Earth’s spin rate fluctuates. From day to day, the time it takes for the Earth to complete one rotation increases or decreases by a fraction of a millisecond.”
Why is this happening?
Scientists aren’t yet sure why this happens, but some interesting ideas include that it may be related to processes in the Earth’s inner or outer layers, the oceans, the tides, or even the weather.
Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay Sidorenkov, who are experts on the subject, suspect that the current decrease in day length might have something to do with the ‘Chandler wobble’.
The Chandler wobble is the name given to a small irregular movement of the Earth’s geographic poles on the surface of the globe. “The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is regarding three to four meters at the Earth’s surface,” Dr. Zotov told timeanddate“but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared.”
It’s worth mentioning that the term “day length” is used to refer to how slowly or quickly the Earth rotates. The length of the day is the difference between the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once on its axis and 86,400 seconds (which is 24 hours). When the difference results in a negative number, the Earth spins faster; on the contrary, the Earth rotates more slowly and the length of the day increases.
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