A giant Chinese dam has affected the planet’s rotation speed, increasing the length of the day. Scientists have explained how this happened.
The world’s largest hydroelectric dam, the Three Gorges Dam in China, not only changed the landscape and ecology of the region, but also influenced the rotation of the Earth. As NASA experts found out, due to the huge mass of water in the reservoir, the day became longer by 0.06 microseconds.
Construction of the dam was completed in 2012, and since then it has held a colossal volume of water – about 40 cubic kilometers. The length of the structure is 2,335 meters (the same as 20 football fields), and the height is 185 meters.
Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao from NASA explains: this concentration of mass acts as a brake on the Earth. Water shifts the planet’s center of gravity, making it slightly wider at the equator and flattened at poles. This slows down the rotation.
Although the change is minimal (0.00000006 seconds), the news caused a lot of discussion. Users joke: “Maybe we can add these microseconds to on days off?»
But the effect is not the only one. The dam also shifted the earth’s axis by 2 centimeters. For comparison, the earthquake in Japan in 2011, on the contrary, accelerated the Earth’s rotation by 1.8 microseconds.
Scientists thought: if we build even larger-scale objects, the consequences could be more serious. For example, projects to connect the seas can enhance such effects.
China is already planning new giant construction projects in Tibet. And the world receives yet another proof: humanity is changing not only nature, but also fundamental processes planets.
Even the most ambitious projects have consequences that we are only just beginning to understand. And the Three Gorges Dam is the first, but not the last example of such influence.
Source: geoinfo.ru
Photo: nemcd.com
