You know those busy moments that make you wish the day had more hours?
Your wish will come true, but only in a few million year and because of the Moon.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have confirmed that Earth’s days are getting longer. Each year, our days get a hundredth of a thousandth of a second (1/75000) longer.
The numbers may not be impressive, as it is little for the lifetime of human beings. Not even the generation of your great-great-grandchildren will feel the difference.
But many, many years from now, that change will be crucial. Just think the other way around. If the days are getting longer, years ago they were shorter.
Scientists discovered that about 1.4 billion years ago, a time four times older than the dinosaurs, when there was no living being with more than one cell on the planet, a day lasted only 18 hours.
And this is, at least in part, caused by the increasing distance between the Moon and Earth.
