The Earth has shifted

[Rusty_Shackleford]

This is pretty amazing, and frightening.

NASA confirms a giant dam shifted Earth’s axis and made days shorter - African In Space https://share.google/fmmuFzV0ZBia6TClL

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I bet somebody will say this is a hoax.

I would just say it is a tipping point..........

 

[Colin_T]

If a dam did that, what are all the sky scrapers and smaller dams doing?

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I bet somebody will say this is a hoax.

I would just say it is a tipping point..........

That joke is a little off kilter.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It isn't the dam, it is all the water behind it that is responsible.

From 1994 to 2012, the Three Gorges Dam created a huge reservoir containing about 39.3 billion cubic meters—equivalent to roughly 10 trillion gallons of water. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have confirmed that the added weight caused Earth’s rotation axis to shift approximately two centimeters, or about three-quarters of an inch.

Two centimeters may seem tiny compared to Earth’s massive size, but in terms of planetary physics, it is a significant shift. The reservoir’s weight presses down on the Earth’s crust above sea level, redistributing mass inside the planet and affecting the moment of inertia—a physical property determining how fast the planet spins.

At 8 pounds/gal. the water above weighs about 80 trillion pounds.

 

[GaryE]

Dam it.

You can never say this is a shiftless planet.

 

[anewbie]

This is pretty amazing, and frightening.

NASA confirms a giant dam shifted Earth’s axis and made days shorter - African In Space https://share.google/fmmuFzV0ZBia6TClL

sigh; we want longer days not shorter days - there simply is not enough time to get everythign done.

 

[Innesfan]

Thanks to this thread I can't shake an earworm of a Carole King tune.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Thanks to this thread I can't shake an earworm of a Carole King tune.

Put it on the turntable and give it a spin.