Home › Forums › In The News › Chile Earthquake Shortens the Day and Changes Earth's Axis › Reply To: Chile Earthquake Shortens the Day and Changes Earth's Axis
March 3, 2010 7:56 pm at 7:56 pm
#675977
squeak
Participant
To put things in perspective – even if the details are true they are insignificant. The rotational speed of the Earth is variable. If this same earthquake happened 1 million more times, we would need to add one negative leap second once per year. Currently we already add around 6/10 of a positive leap second per year (and one would offset the other).
The impact of this event is infinitesimal at the astronomical level; I’m not sure why it is having a greater impact at the blogging level. This branch of science is almost never really exciting, despite attempts to hype it.