Chile earthquake may have shortened days

[0iD]

Chile earthquake may have shortened days

Seventh strongest quake in recorded history may have shifted Earth's axis.
The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 microseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. One microsecond is one-millionth of a second long.

We're all doomed.....dooooooooooooooomed!

[matty-hodgson]

How boring does your life have to be for you to carry out an investigation into the effect of an earthquake on the length of days :|

[Funkstar]

Somehow I doubt that is all the guy does Matty

OiD, put down the Daily Mail and step away. I have a nice copy of New Scientist for you right here...

[Powderhound]

It means that, measured in days, you're going to live slightly longer, so quit complaining.

[Whiternoise]

This potentially has some far reaching effects if there are high precision measurements and navigation devices that rely on the Earth's rotational period. It's a small a change, but it's the sort of thing that adds up over many machine hours.

[Ben Rogers]

There was a small earthquake in north devon a few days ago, 1.4 on the richter scale lol but no one felt it..

http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/ne...l/article.html

[Saracen]

No wonder I feel tired. If the day is shorter, I'm obviously sleep deprived. I'm off to bed to correct that.