Chile Earthquake 'Shifts Earth Axis And Shortens Days'

Quake 'Shifts Earth Axis And Shortens Days'
10:00pm UK, Tuesday March 02, 2010


The powerful earthquake that shook Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth's axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist has said.



Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated how much the axis may have changed.

He said it would have shifted by 8cm (three inches) during the 8.8 magnitude quake in South America, Nasa said in a statement.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that is the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.


If the planet's axis did shift by 8cm during the Chilean quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second, so no need to adjust watches just yet.

The Chilean quake shifted the Earth's axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude tremor off Indonesia that started the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, Mr Gross worked out.

This was partly because the fault line responsible for the quake in Chile "dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake", he said.

The different angle made Saturday's tremor more effective at moving Earth's mass vertically and shifting the planet's axis, Mr Gross continued.

The 2004 quake in Asia caused the Earth to move by around 7cm. It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.

:: The Chilean earthquake killed more than 700 people. Some two million people are estimated to have been affected by the tremor and subsequent tsunamis.

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Oh dear i am short of 1.26 microseconds,which means i suppose that sex is out of the question tonight ?

Apart from that i am led to believe that the Earths axis is always a bit wobbly so i really dont know what to do now ?

Lioned wrote:Oh dear i am short of 1.26 microseconds,which means i suppose that sex is out of the question tonight ?

Apart from that i am led to believe that the Earths axis is always a bit wobbly so i really dont know what to do now ?

I don't know Lioned mate.....You could maybe wash your hair or play hide the sausage on your own??

I don't know Lioned mate.....You could maybe wash your hair or play hide the sausage on your own??


Yep,i'll give that a go.

I'm not sure I believe all these things scientists come out with, I think they do it to make themselves sound clever

After all, who is ever going to be able to disprove this. Pfft. I'm not impressed

Harvesmom wrote:I'm not sure I believe all these things scientists come out with, I think they do it to make themselves sound clever

After all, who is ever going to be able to disprove this. Pfft. I'm not impressed

Well I am sure you can ring them up and tell them that they are big fat liars. Tell them you won the kindness award - that should sway it