The Earth's rotation speed has suddenly accelerated, and there are less than 24 hours in a day. What is going on?

With the advancement of human technology, we now know that the earth is a planet in the solar system. In the solar system, there are a total of eight planets, which are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. There is also a Pluto outside. Pluto once belonged to a planet, but later scientists believed that Pluto's size and mass were too small, so they kicked Pluto out of the ranks of planets. Among the eight planets in the solar system, currently only the Earth This planet gave birth to life, and the appearance of life has added a lot of color to the planet Earth, especially after the emergence of humans, many mysteries on the earth have been solved.

According to the research of scientists, we can know that the earth is constantly rotating and revolving all the time. The earth's rotation is a movement mode of the earth. It refers to the rotation of the earth around its axis of rotation, and the direction of this rotation is From west to east, it is precisely because of the rotation of the earth that we can determine the time of day. In order to facilitate timekeeping, humans divide a day into 24 hours. However, since the birth of the earth, its rotation speed is not constant. , Scientists have found through research that about 4.6 billion years ago, it only took 6 hours for the earth to rotate once. 4.6 billion years ago, which is the early stage of the birth of the solar system, about 5 billion years ago, the solar system was in chaos. After the sun was born, it absorbed a lot of surrounding matter.

Therefore, the mass of the sun accounts for 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system, and the remaining eight planets and other substances account for 0.14% of the total mass of the solar system. From the proportions, we can see that the mass of the sun is very large Yes, among the planets in the solar system, the rotation speed of each planet is different, so why did the earth change from 6 hours at the beginning to 24 hours now? This actually has a lot to do with the moon. I believe everyone is very familiar with the moon. The moon is the only satellite of the earth, and it is also the closest celestial body to the earth. Because of the appearance of the moon, the rotation speed of the earth is slow. Slowly descended.

This is because there is a kind of traction between the moon and the earth, which causes the tidal effect on the earth, such as the ebb and flow of the ocean, because the revolution speed of the moon is much slower than the rotation speed of the earth, so the rotation of the moon is caused The speed of the moon is also getting slower and slower. After billions of years of changes, the earth has become today's 24 hours. In addition, if there is no relatively stable orbit of the moon, the state of the earth itself will not be so stable. , so the existence of the moon is more conducive to the survival of life on earth. Seeing this, many friends may have a question, how did the moon form?

Some scientists believe that the moon was once part of the earth, because the earth cannot capture the moon according to the earth's gravity, so scientists speculate that in the early days of the solar system, an asteroid with a large mass hit the earth, And knocked out a small part of the earth, and the part that was knocked out became the moon. Although this is only a conjecture of scientists, it also makes sense. However, according to the latest research of scientists, in recent years, the earth has The speed of rotation continues to accelerate, and there are less than 24 hours in a day. What is going on? Scientists calculated that on July 19, 2020, we had the shortest day in 50 years, when the earth completed its rotation 1.4602 milliseconds earlier.

Seeing this, many friends may say that 1.4602 milliseconds is negligible. From the perspective of human beings, this number is basically negligible, because this number will not have a huge impact on life on earth, but for For special industries, this number is very important. For example, aerospace technology, even if there is an error of a few milliseconds, it may cause serious consequences. It may be thousands or tens of thousands of years later, then the speed of the earth's rotation will accelerate. It will become more and more obvious, if the earth's rotation is fast, what will be the impact?

First of all, the shape of the earth will change. Due to the rotation of the earth, the earth is not a perfect spherical shape. At present, the poles of the earth will be flattened, and the equator will be slightly convex. If the rotation speed of the earth increases, the equator of the earth will increase by several thousand kilometer, at this time our earth looks like a squashed sphere, and the speed of the earth's rotation will increase, which will cause huge pressure on the earth's crust, which will lead to strong earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are very frequent, which is very harmful to life on earth. It is very serious. Once 65 million years ago, an asteroid hit the earth, causing 90% of the creatures on the earth to perish. At that time, the overlords on the earth were dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs ruled the earth for 160 million years. If it weren't for the large number of volcanic eruptions on the earth after the asteroid hit the earth, then the dinosaurs may still be alive now. In addition to these, the acceleration of the earth's rotation will make the earth's atmosphere concentrated In the equatorial region, and then completely change the weather of the earth, because the atmosphere rotates at the same speed as the earth, the global storms will become more intense, and the hurricanes formed on the ocean will become larger, although in a short period of time The speed of the Earth's rotation is unlikely to cause these serious effects, but in tens of thousands of years or hundreds of millions of years later, these are possible.

For humans, tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of years are very long, but for the earth, these are all moments. After all, the earth has been 4.6 billion years since its birth. Over the years, the earth has undergone many changes. With the changes in the earth's environment, the creatures on the earth have also experienced five mass extinction events. Human beings were born after the fifth mass extinction, but among the many creatures on the earth, Human beings are the most intelligent life on earth. Human beings have been exploring the mysteries of the world since their birth. After thousands of years of technological development, human beings can finally go out of the earth and explore the universe.

Although human beings have a general understanding of the universe, there are still many mysteries that humans cannot explain in the universe. However, with the progress and development of human science and technology, the editor believes that in the near future, human beings will be able to unlock the universe. All the mysteries in the book, the editor hopes that this day will come soon. Do you have anything to say about it?