Busy Day

The Japan Earthquake moved time

I've been addicted to footage from the Earthquake/Tsunami in Japan all weekend. I actually couldn't find the clip I wanted to post here but this one above will do. I find it hard to actually wrap my head around something as powerful and devastating as this earthquake, even with all the amazing video we've been seeing. To wit..

According to Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the earthquake actually accelerated Earth’s spin (by rearranging enough mass), which shortened the length of the day by 1.8 microseconds. To put that into perspective a bit, a microsecond is one millionth of a second, so we won’t have to reinvent the clock anytime soon.

via geekosystem

That's right, the Japan Earthquake changed the speed at which the earth spins! It also moved the entire island of Japan by about 8 feet. 8 feet! I had to have four friends over to help me move a big chair 8 feet last weekend.