day length tagged posts

Why the day is 24 hours long: Astrophysicists reveal why Earth’s Day was a Constant 19.5 hours for over a Billion Years

The earth with a thermometer beside it - temps rising!
The rise in temperature of our atmosphere due to global warming has the potential to increase the atmospheric solar tides and slow the Earth’s rotation. Image: Â© iStock | narith_2527.

Result sheds new light on how climate change will affect the length of the day and validity of climate modelling tools. A team of astrophysicists at the University of Toronto (U of T) has revealed how the slow and steady lengthening of Earth’s day caused by the tidal pull of the moon was halted for over a billion years.

They show that from approximately two billion years ago until 600 million years ago, an atmospheric tide driven by the sun countered the effect of the moon, keeping Earth’s rotational rate steady and the length of day at a constant 19.5 hours.

Without this billion-year pause in th...

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