He held his breath. Earth days “frozen” for a billion years as the Sun and Moon battle for influence

If you’re one of those people who oddly tends to stay up a little late every night, that’s fine. Since the Earth’s rotation will slow down enough one day, our day will be 1 hour longer, you can consider yourself ahead of time. The researchers thought they could predict exactly when that would happen, but things turned out to be a little more complicated, according to IFLScience.

It is known that the days of the earth are getting longer and longer, mainly due to the influence of the moon. But researchers now believe that this is not happening as evenly as previously thought. Researchers claim that there is a gap of at least 1 billion years in the history of our planet where this did not happen. The results of the study suggest that this happened about 2 billion years ago and is likely due to changes in Earth’s atmosphere.

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The interaction between the Earth and the Moon is complex and slowly moves the satellite away, slowing the rotation of our planet. While the basic physics of this process is taught in school, keeping the pace seems not an easy task. It’s actually so complex that scientists now believe they were wrong before.

Co-authors of the study are Professor Ross Mitchell of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. According to Uwe Kirscher, they discovered that after the formation of the Moon, the Earth’s days first lengthened, but froze at one point (at about 19 hours), and then the extension resumed again. This “extinction period” is assumed to last about 1-2 billion years, coinciding with what geologists refer to as the “boring billion”. This period of Earth’s history got its name from the fact that there was very little in it before the sudden flowering of multicellular life that followed. Researchers believe this is not a coincidence.

Scientists believe the delay is actually due to the fact that the Moon is not the only celestial body affecting our days. The Sun is also known to cause tides in the Earth’s atmosphere, which can accelerate its rotation. Currently, their tides are much weaker than those on the moon and only soften them a bit, but that wasn’t always the case.

Mitchell said that as the Moon is closer, the frictional bond between it and Earth weakens as our planet rotates faster. Tidal frequencies did not resonate with Earth on a global scale and hindered energy transfer. Later, researchers speculated that at some point the moon’s power may have been so small that the sun could completely compensate for it. And the results show that it is. Researchers also believe that the Earth’s atmosphere, where oxygen levels are low and ozone levels high, plays an important role in this, allowing the Sun’s influence to be stronger.

Solar tides are excited by the absorption of sunlight by water vapor and ozone. Therefore, Mitchell believes this was only possible between the Great Oxidation Event and the rise in O2 levels that spurred the birth of animals and re-interested geology.

Note that in the past the calculation of day length was based on thin layers of sedimentary rock in former tidal muddy areas. However, it may not always be true. In their new work, Mitchell and Kirscher used Milankovitch cycles in Earth’s orbit to calculate.

Previously Focus He wrote whether it is possible to notice the rotation of the earth from the surface of the planet: there are several ways.