BALTIMORE ; The massive earthquake that struck Chile may have altered the Earth in two significant ways — time and position.
Mary Bubala reports scientists at the Maryland Science Center helped WJZ get the facts.
The Maryland Science Center’s floating sphere captures real time seismic activity, including the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Chile.
Scientists say the earthquake may have changed the entire Earth’s rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet.
The quake, the seventh strongest in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and shortened the length of a day by 1.26 microseconds.
How will it affect your life?
“It probably won’t. You do not need to change the time your alarm clock is set to, and you don’t need to call any invitations out of wack. You probably won’t notice it at all,” said Wendy Ackerman, MarylandScience Center.
Still scientists say it’s unsettling to think how much impact something as concentrated as an earthquake can have on an entire planet.
In fact, the earthquake in Chile also may have moved their earth’s figure axis by about three inches.
Ackerman uses an analogy to explain it.
“When an ice skater spins on the ice spins pretty quickly, but that rotation actually increases as the ice skater pulls their mass in tighter and tighter,” said Ackerman.
The Maryland Science Center is also able to track current seismic activity with a seismic monitor.
The machine allows you to see that in Chile, there are red rings which show there’s still some tremor activity. The same is true in Taiwan, where there was anearthquake Thursday.
“It’s a sequence of events happening pretty frequently, so our awareness is definitely peaked,” said Ackerman.
The Chile earthquake isn’t the first or only natural disaster that changed the Earth’s shift. The tsunami of 2004 shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds.
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