If the day starts to feel shorter, here’s why

The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”

BusinessWeek.com

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Bag of Randomness

  • Yesterday morning I walked by a Canadian coworker’s cube and it was all deck out with print-outs and other things that said “Congrats Canada!”
  • Someone commented yesterday in regards to defacing U.S. currency is an illegal act.  Well, it most certainly is, and here’s the U.S. Mint telling us so.
  • This quote made me laugh yesterday, “You don’t remember that from School House Rock?  You idiot!”
  • Everytime I see a Bill White for Governor commercial the first thing that pops into my mind is just how ugly of a kid he was.
  • Everytime I see a Debra Medina for Governor commercial the first thing that pops into my mind is how unprofessional it looks.
  • Evertime I see a Kay Bailey Hutchinson for Governor commercial the first thing that pops into my mind is how old, weak, and un-energetic she appears.  I wonder if she regrets throwing her hat into the ring.
  • Everytime I see a Rick Perry for Governor commercial the first thing that pops into my mind is, that’s some really good looking hair.
  • The cast for Dancing With The Stars is quite interesting, and I bet man men are happy to see Erin Andrews be part of the cast.  She’ll do well, as she was on the dance team when she attended the University of Florida.  I’ll also enjoy watching Chad Ochocinco, but that’s probably about it.
  • An old coworker send me an email telling me his mother just died 45 minutes ago yesterday.  I was humbly touched.
  • Different states have different rules for expiration dates.
  • Sounds like a joke, but isn’t – Bill Clinton actually called Tiger Woods
  • Not really news, but George W. Bush says he relied on his faith while in the White House
  • If healthcare legislation was passed by three former presidents
  • 25 Hottest NFL Cheerleaders – A Cowboys Cheerleader comes in #1, but this is where my friend Nathan tells me that the Giants don’t have cheerleaders because they take their football seriously.
  • The 50 Best Movies of 2009, All Spoiled in Four Minutes
  • What would you do for $5?
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