In society it is believed that in one days 24 hours. It is during this time that the Earth makes a full turn around its axis and one cycle of the morning, day, evening and nights passes. But from a scientific point of view, things are not so simple. The fact is that scientists are known at once a few species of day and the most close to the usual 24 o'clock are the average sunny day. Around the 1970s, to determine the exact time, scientists use atomic clocks that are able to measure time with an accuracy of milliseconds. If you look at this watch, it is not always 24 hours in days. Usually our planet is spinning slowly and for the commission takes a little more time. Sometimes scientists even came to the conclusion that every year the Earth spins everything slower. But on July 19, 2020, the land made a turn around his axis over a record time. The exact reason for this phenomenon is still unknown, but it can cause some problems.
Rotation of the Earth around the axis
An unusual phenomenon was told in the publishing house of The Telegraph. For the first time in the history of observations, the Earth rotated not slower than the usual 24 hours, and faster. So, on July 19, 2020, it turned out to be one of the shortest days in history. It turned out to be 1,4602 milliseconds shorter than usual. Many may seem that the thousandth share of a second is an insignificant. This is really - even in the blinking person closes his eyes at 400 milliseconds, which is much more than this indicator. But scientists believe that a sudden acceleration of the rotation of the Earth around its axis may be unpleasant consequences.
It should not affect the health of people and the state of nature. But in the whole history, humanity has created many devices whose work is strictly dependent on time. As an example, the GPS satellite navigation can be brought, which at the time of its invention in the distance in 1973 was used only for military purposes. But at the moment the movement of cars depends on it and just movement of people. If the earth suddenly starts to spin faster, the accuracy of location can noticeably deteriorate. And this may cause serious consequences, up to the emergence of accidents.
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Why is the speed of rotation of the Earth?
Because of which last year, the Earth made a record rapid turnover around his axis, the scientist is still unknown. They are well aware that it can affect a huge number of different factors. Sometimes speed changes due to the attraction of the moon. But this indicator may also affect such non-obvious factors as the amount of snow dropped in the polar regions of the planet. Moreover, the speed of rotation of the Earth may change even because of the leaves in the forests of Russia and Canada.
Scientists have not yet come to a single opinion about how they need to react to an unusual phenomenon. Perhaps this is really a one-time event and worry absolutely nothing about. After all, last year our planet really has undergone many changes. At a minimum, because of a quarantine coronavirus associated with a pandemic, many people sat at home and the air in cities became cleaner. This could also become a significant factor that resulted in a sudden acceleration of the rotation of the Earth. Fires could be made their contribution, which in 2020 especially strongly walked in California. After all, if you remember, because of the fire, even the sky was stained in red and everything that happened was like the end of the world.
There is also a chance that the land is periodically accelerated by itself and it is completely normal for it. Such accelerations could occur before, just people did not notice this. After all, attention, we are talking about milliseconds. Most of the time we do not notice even when I blink. And thorough tracking over time began only in the second half of the 20th century. And we have a lot to know about our planet and the time that proceeds.
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If you are interested in how atomic hours work, I recommend reading this material. In it, the author Hi-News.ru Ilya Hel told in detail about the principle of their work and even explained, they are radioactive or not. He also affected the history of the creation of atomic hours and measuring atomic time. In general, it turned out a very detailed article that would definitely expand your horizons. Enjoy reading!