Researchers who used highly accurate atomic clocks say the Earth's rotation sped up in 2021, leading to a shorter year.
shorter than average—"the new shortest year on record."
It's all because of Earth's rotational speed. A small shift in how fast the planet spins might cause a day to be a tiny fraction of a second longer or shorter than its"If you look at the length of a day, throughout the year, you can kind of see peaks and troughs," Graham said."And one of the key things that affects that is the moon's orbit and the moon's distance from the Earth.
This is a relatively short-term effect, said Graham, but other factors like the sloshing of our planet's oceans and the movement of its interior are also thought to have an effect in the longer term—it's just not perfectly understood how. As such, it's difficult to make predictions about the Earth's rotational speed more than about six months in advance.
In general, it's thought that the Earth has been slowing down over long periods of time, causing years to get gradually longer, Graham added. This can be inferred from things like geological records or astronomical observations of solar eclipses. "What was interesting last year is that we saw that the Earth kind of put on a burst of speed during the year," Graham said."The acceleration of the speed has slowed down, but the Earth has still carried over its speed from last year, so this year is coming in quicker. The current thinking is that next year will be slightly shorter still, but it's difficult to say for sure.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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