Planet Earth has an infinite number of thousands of years of life and our passage through this star as a human race seems relatively insignificant. But that has not prevented our intelligence from making us ask ourselves questions about the passing of days and time.
In many parts of the planet, the clocks have just changed to adopt winter or summer time, depending on the hemisphere of the planet where they read us.
This modification that adds or removes hours from the clock always ends up being an inexhaustible source of memes. But it still ends up affecting our own biological cycle where we live a kind of jet lag transitory while we adapt to the new rhythm.
A curious and unavoidable feeling during these dates of the time change is that the days feel much longer than usual.
But this time it would not be our imagination, and it is that scientifically it has just been verified that indeed, lately the days on Earth are longer.
Why are the days longer on Earth now?
The colleagues of National Geographic In Spanish have published an extensive and elaborate article where they address this curious phenomenon that has stretched the time of each day on our planet.
The article, written as a compilation of studies, is extensive, deep and does not have a wasted paragraph if the topic is of your absolute interest. So here we will share the juiciest details.
Broadly speaking, the planet has its magnetic field, a coating that cushions the impacts of geomagnetic storms from the Sun, as well as the cosmic radiation generated by galaxies and other celestial bodies in the Universe.
It is therefore a key factor for the precarious balance that our planet maintains today. However, since 2020, a team of astrophysicists has discovered that the Earth’s magnetic field is weakening.
It is something natural in any life cycle of any star, but in this particular case this event seems to trigger the days to be longer and longer.
Studies on how the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field affects rotation have been going on for a couple of years now and have led to conclude that for example 1,400 million years ago each day lasted 19 hours instead of 24.
In the end, the studies have led to the discovery that the rotation of the Earth is not always precise and that little by little an upward trend is shown in the time that each day lasts.
But in all cases it is a matter of ranges as low as 1.59 milliseconds. Even in some cases the days technically last less than the full 24 hours.
So there is not much to worry about.