So this little (well really quite big) earthquake that just struck Chili, may have done some long term damage to the Earth itself.
Beyond the upset to the planet’s crust, the quake changed the Earth’s rotational speed, shortening our days by approximately 1.26 microseconds (1.26 millionth of a second)
Also Nasa is reporting that the “figure” axis, which is the axis that the Earth’s mass is balanced around, not the north/south axis was moved by this quake as well, somewhere in the neighborhood of three inches in total.
No one is saying what the long term effects of these changes are, but no one is jumping up and down saying it’s a problem either. I’m sure as more data comes in we will get a clearer picture of what happened, but in the mean time, enjoy the fact that tomorrow will be here 1.26 microseconds faster than you thought. ;-)
…
amazon.com: Earthshaking Science: What We Know (and Don’t Know) about Earthquakes
