The massive earthquake that devastated Chile and caused tsunami warnings in Hawaii may have also literally knocked Earth off its axis.
The quake, which measured 8.8 on the Richter Scale, may have also made our days shorter, according to NASA’s Richard Gross.
This type of small change to the Earth’s axis shouldn’t have much of an effect on our weather, however. The actual tilt of our planet is what causes our seasons and it would take a much larger change in axis to affect them.
Gross says that the Chile earthquake may have moved the Earth’s axis by approximately 3 inches. He also says the quake shortened our day by about 1.26 microseconds, according to a sophisticated model he and developed with other scientist.
He says that the Earth’s rotation was probably affected by the massive shift in mass, which could cause it to spin faster.
Scientists believe that other earthquakes, like the 2004 9.1-magnitude earthquake in Sumatra, also shortened the Earth’s day. That particular earthquake knocked off about 6.8 microseconds and altered our axis by nearly 7 inches.
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