Quake Caused Loss of Time

Quake Caused Loss of Time

Ever had that feeling that time is moving faster? Or that feeling of sleepiness when you wake up in the morning, because the night seemed to have gone faster? Well, sleepy time is shorter, because time is shorter, but only by a few milliarcseconds.

Yesterday, a NASA scientist announced that the massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27th, may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on the planet. Research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif,  announced that  NASA scientists, using a computer model to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake, found that (the quake) may have moved Earth on its axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds)  and may have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds.

 1.26!!! Now before we lose a lot of sleep over this axis shift and permanent time loss, and begin having nightmares about the planet's sliding into to Armageddon, this has happened before. "Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past." For example, "The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, ... shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

Also NASA announced yesterday that it found evidence of more water on the moon, detected ice deposits near the moon's north pole.