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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 03/02/2010 : 11:02:38
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According to CNN: (CNN) -- The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth's axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.
The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.
A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.
When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day. |
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 14:57:37 [Permalink]
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Wow, what a horrible headline and lead.
Interesting note about the Three Gorges reservoir. I've also heard that all the dams in the northern hemisphere hold back enough water to make the planet spin faster (well, a measurable amount faster).
So, since I want more time in a day (I've got so much to do!), I need to blow all the dams except the ones close to the Equator, as well as undo the tectonic shifts of the Chile and Sumatran earthquakes, and get Three Gorges finished. As if I didn't have enough on my plate already. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 18:10:39 [Permalink]
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The headline on CNN's front page for the story is even more ominous: "Quake may have shortened days". Sounds like something a hellfire-and-damnation preacher would scream. It certainly shortened the days of (so far) 795 Chileans.
I take it that the 1.26 microsecond shortening of days is based upon reasonable estimates of mass displacement and geophysics, not upon an actual new measurement of rotation of the earth. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/02/2010 : 19:26:00 [Permalink]
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I wouldn't trust CNN too far.... You might end up 4,000 miles off course.
CNN host Rick Sanchez may have been trying to overdramatize this weekend's earthquake in Chile by placing Hawaii off the coast of Ecuador for his more geographically-challenged viewers.
Or maybe he just doesn't know where the Pacific island state is located.
Shortly after the 8.8-magnitude temblor, fears grew about a tsunami hitting Hawaii, and that's when Sanchez displayed a map of South America.
"And this is Hawaii," he said, pointing to the Galapagos Islands some 500 miles off the coast of Ecuador. The actual Hawaiian islands are another 4,000 miles northwest of where Sanchez indicated.
The Galapagos being much closer to Chile than Hawaii, it may have been an attempt to overestimate the danger and keep his viewers tuned in.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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"Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis"
