🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE: We have the moon's gravity to blame.
If you could venture back in time to the Neoproterozoic era, about 620 million years ago, you’d notice a radically different planet. Most observable life forms would be alien-looking fronds and worms, and, if that didn’t send you running back to your time machine, you’d notice that even the days were different. Hundreds of millions of years ago, a day was only aboutFor billions of years, Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down.
Scientists today can measure even the smallest changes in the Earth’s rotation thanks to a technique known as. It relies on space telescopes located far apart on Earth’s surface attuned to signals from outer space. As the Earth spins, these signals come in and out of view. By comparing the time it takes for a signal to disappear and reappear, scientists can calculate with great precision how long it’s taken for the Earth to make a full rotation.
The mechanism boils down to an exchange of energy between the Earth and moon. The moon’s gravitational pull creates a slight bump in the solid surface of the Earth, near to, but not exactly underneath where the moon is. The disparity between the bump’s position and the moon’s pull creates a torque on both the Earth and moon with the end result that the Earth slows down gradually.
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