Scientists have proved that earth days are getting longer

The reason that the duration of the day increases - the gradual removal of the moon from the Earth.

For greater clarity of what is happening Professor of Geology Stephen Mayer, one of the authors of the study, came up with a truly poetic analogy. He compared the Earth with a skater, which spins around its axis and slowly slows, stretching his arms. In her hands, for the sake of imagery, you can imagine the moon.

The technique by which scientists have been able to calculate the speed of the Earth in the past, scientists published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Over the last 1.5 billion years, our planet began to circulate about its axis about 5 hours and 15 minutes longer. And the moon, accordingly, was much larger: in those distant times our satellite was 44,000 kilometers closer to the earth's surface than it is now.

The main goal of the study, however, was not at all the calculation of how many ancient bacteria could do in a day. A group of scientists led by Mayer tried to model how the climate of our planet has changed in its entire history. In addition to the rotation speed, the researchers also take into account the gravitational influence of the Sun and other planets, as well as the amount of sunlight that the Earth received.