Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days

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Source:  Alan Buis, NASA News 2010-071

 Excerpt:  The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day. JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. … by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second). … more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis. Gross calculates the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis… by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches).

 www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth-20100301.html

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