here's more info i saw on what the quake did to the earth's axis:
Quake Was So Violent It Changed Time?
The massive earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean may have done more than generate a deadly tsunami. A geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California thinks the quake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation, which would cause our days to be shortened by a fraction of a second, as well as caused the planet to wobble on its axis, reports Reuters.
NASA's Richard Gross theorizes there was a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the earthquake on Dec. 26 that caused our planet to spin three microseconds--or three millionths of a second--faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis. The earthquake "had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross told Reuters.
A global positioning satellite network routinely measures changes in the Earth's spin, but Gross thinks that the changes detected by his model are so minuscule they probably won't be picked up by the satellites. However, there's a chance the data may reveal a slight wobble. Before you start acting like Chicken Little, know this: Gross explained to Reuters that the Earth's poles travel a circular path that typically varies by about 33 feet, so an extra inch of wobble is unlikely to cause long-term effects. "That continual motion is just used to changing," he explained. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation."
But when these variations that are measured in millionths of a second add up to something more significant, planetary scientists add a "leap second" to the end of a year. While this has been done previously, it hasn't happened for many years.
Quake Was So Violent It Changed Time?
The massive earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean may have done more than generate a deadly tsunami. A geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California thinks the quake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation, which would cause our days to be shortened by a fraction of a second, as well as caused the planet to wobble on its axis, reports Reuters.
NASA's Richard Gross theorizes there was a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the earthquake on Dec. 26 that caused our planet to spin three microseconds--or three millionths of a second--faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis. The earthquake "had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross told Reuters.
A global positioning satellite network routinely measures changes in the Earth's spin, but Gross thinks that the changes detected by his model are so minuscule they probably won't be picked up by the satellites. However, there's a chance the data may reveal a slight wobble. Before you start acting like Chicken Little, know this: Gross explained to Reuters that the Earth's poles travel a circular path that typically varies by about 33 feet, so an extra inch of wobble is unlikely to cause long-term effects. "That continual motion is just used to changing," he explained. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation."
But when these variations that are measured in millionths of a second add up to something more significant, planetary scientists add a "leap second" to the end of a year. While this has been done previously, it hasn't happened for many years.
