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HeresyLives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 02:15 PM
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Quake may have shifted Earth's axis, shortened day
Quake may have shifted Earth's axis, shortened day

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Tue. Mar. 2 2010 1:44 PM ET

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27 was so powerful it may have tipped Earth's axis and shortened the length of a day, scientists at NASA say.

According to NASA, a complex computer model's preliminary calculation shows that Earth's days should have shortened by 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is a one millionth of a second).

A large quake shifts enough rock to redistribute the mass of the planet, which can speed its rotation.

The change won't be noticed in day-to-day life, but is permanent.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100302/quake_nasa_100302/20100302?hub=TopStoriesV2
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wial Donating Member (362 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 02:18 PM
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1. yeah but
the passage of time itself is constantly speeding up and slowing down relative to all other objects in the universe.

A person with a watch knows what time it is.

A person with Einstein's watch...
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HeresyLives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 02:27 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Well I have atomic time, so that will have to do.
Axis shift tho...
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Skink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 03:13 PM
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3. Now let's see how Goldman Sachs can benefit from this.
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Cronus Protagonist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Temporal default swaps
Edited on Tue Mar-02-10 03:28 PM by Cronus Protagonist
Spread the risk over time, gamble on how many seconds lost or gained.
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Duke Newcombe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-02-10 09:06 PM
Response to Original message
5. This explains a lot: woke up this morning...
more tired than usual.
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krispos42 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-03-10 02:08 AM
Response to Original message
6. Damn, we lost some of our intertial moment!
Curse you, plate tectonics!

*shakes fist at sky*
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