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NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth
Cuyamaca writes "
NASA
scientists, using data from the Indonesian earthquake
calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the
length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and
shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that
created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation." You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Let me guess, those are missing in the night, right?
At least that would explain my lack of sleep lately...
Too small to detect? Then why is my watch running slow?
Seriously, this means we'll need an additional leap second once every thousand years or so. Unless, of course, something else changes the length of the day, which will likely happen first.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
;)
Damn! My project is already behind schedule, this is the last thing I need. Oh well, better stop reading so much slashdot
-dynamo
great, more time for people to do things like this
/* No Comment */
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Well, there goes my sex life.
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Yay! My first raise in pay since 2001!!
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
NASA scientists, using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation.
What exactly do you editors do besides add pointless side comments? Evidently not editing.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
According to this article the moon's orbit is causing our day to lengthen by about 2 milliseconds per century anyway. I, for one, am greatly relieved. ;-)
I like this quote, which underscores the lack of newsworthiness of this, "Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car." So, using that fancy scientific notation to represent all the zeroes between my numbers and the decimal point, I can compute the change in rotation and pole location caused by my commute this morning. Call the newspapers!!!
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Oh, don't flatter yourself. :)
2.68 fewer microseconds?
.0000784 fewer frames of Quake 3 each day!
Hell! That means I'll be able to render
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
A CNN article on this subject included what I thought was a fascinating quote:
In human time, earthquakes that powerful are rare, but in the vastness of geologic time, they are commonplace. "An earthquake of this magnitude, in this part of the world, has probably occurred about a million times since the breakup of Pangea," said Chris Scotese, a geophysicist at the University of Texas-Arlington. "No exaggeration."
Too often we're bounded by thinking of events in human time scales (if not generational time scales) but a 9.0 quake is just a regular occurance in the life of the Earth. It's suppose it's events like these that reveals how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.
Well they do have daily 2.68 usec loss to deal with you know. Ease up man.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
I read on CNN science page that scientists normally look for big events like these (quakes measuring more than 9) in order to learn more about earthquakes. However it was extremely difficult to learn anything as most of the fault lines are deeply buried in ocean bed. Other theory is that these kind of pheneomenon was what resulted in formation of all the continents as we see today from a big land mass lump called Pangea which existed millions of years ago. Another theory is now that these continents are on move again getting closer to forming a big lump. Australia is on a collision course with Asia and North America with Europe. Africa is pushing up on Europse and reducing the Mediterranean region. Considering the technological knowledge this is really neat however considering human lives this is very very sad incident.
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do
Oddly enough, this is the exact length of a 30 minute sitcom minus commercials... I wonder which show this will force off the air?
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
It is very common. For example, the duration of the day in summer is longer than in winter (no, I'm not speaking of the length of the light period, but of the rotation period of the earth). The reason is that the trees move mass upward in spring (they get leaves) and downwards in autumn (the leaves fall back down), which changes the moment of inertia of the earth. Since trees only grow on land areas, and most land areas are on the Northern hemisphere, this gives a net effect of slower earth rotation in (Northern) summer.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
While the day may have gotten shorter, the orbital period of the Earth didn't change, so you get the time back over the entire millennium as an extra leap-second.
Where the fuck do kids learn this shit? Sorry to go off on you, but we get posts like yours every time any thread comes up involving "the earth".
This ball of rock has been here for 4.5 billion years. It ain't going nowhere it ain't gone for the past 4.5 billion years.
Conservation of angular momentum is not the same as conservation of mass. You can speed up the Earth's rotation by squeezing it into something shaped like a bowling pin, or you slow down its rotation by squashing it into a disc, but its orbit around the sun doesn't change unless you add mass to it. And that isn't going to change measurably unless you add so much mass that all life on it would be wiped out anyways. (Hint: We've been taking on a few tons of mass every day in the form of micrometeorites. OMGLOLZ TEH SUN GONNA EAT US... well, actually, not. The earth is a small planet, but it's still pretty fucking massive.)
The reason I'm going ballistic is that this is all basic physics that was figured out over 300 years ago. It's called science. If you're not learning it in school, walk up to your envirocuddly studies, creationist esteem, or whatever the fuck else bullshit they're teaching today teacher. When you're within three feet of that teacher, give him or her a royal bitchslap. They'll expel you. That means you can get out of the fuckin' schools and into a fuckin' library and start learning something.
Good question. Right now, the moon is receiving a boost to its orbital velocity every (Earth) day, due to irregularities in the shape of the Earth. This moves the moon farther away and slows down the earth's rotation. Conservation of angular momentum, doncha know? The earth has sped up, in this case. It has gained angular momentum. Since it's rotating more rapidly now, I'd say that the moon receives its boost more often and will move away more quickly. In the (very) long term, and barring further changes, the moon will end up moving farther away, because the earth now has more angular momentum to lose.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Wow, talk about screwed up thinking.
It's precisely because of conservation of angular momentum that the rotation has increased! Angular momentum must stay constant. The radius of earth has decreased slightly. Thus, in order for the angular momentum to remain the same, the rotation must speed up slightly.
Angular momentum is not the same as rate of rotation. NOT THE SAME!
Your working 2.68 microseconds less each day, but getting paid the same, so technically you got a raise! (provided you distribute thos 2.68 microseconds evenly among the hours your working and not playing WoW)
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
See, the reason the Earth is moving slower is because the average equatorial bulge grew a tiny bit, thus slightly reducing the gravitational attraction for those living on the equator. Therefore, due to general relativity, time will now move a little faster due to local weaking of the gravitational field except that this is exactly canceled out by time moving a little slower due to SR affects caused by moving a tad faster. (OK, I made up the exactly canceling out bit - but it might be true! And, I also made up the equatorial bulge bit, too. OK, I totally didn't RTFA, and am really just making most of this up.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?