Earth Is Spinning Faster and Days Are Getting Shorter, for Now
But when it comes to the full astronomical day — a single rotation of planet Earth in which the hour hand moves twice around a standard clock — some of this year's shortest are happening in July and August.
This week has seen the shortest days of the year so far. According to data from the U.S. Naval Observatory and the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, Tuesday's rotation was about 1.34 milliseconds less than 24 hours.
More quick spins are expected this week, later this month and in early August, according to predictions from the website Time and Date.
This isn't completely out of the ordinary: Our world's spins have been faster than usual lately. The average day has mostly shortened over the past decade, and within the past five years or so, the full rotation has clocked in at a hair less than 24 hours more often than not. Factors driving the change include movements at Earth's core, atmospheric changes and the moon's position.
But long-term trends do not suggest that the days will shorten in perpetuity. In fact, it is just the opposite. For many millenniums, the days have been growing longer. A Tyrannosaurus rex that lived 70 million years ago would have experienced an average daily rotation of about 23 1/2 hours, studies have found.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why nuclear is the center of the stock market's energy trade in 2025
Nuclear energy stocks have been on a tear in 2025. Shares in the space are far outpacing peers in the broader energy sector. AI and support from the Trump White House are big tailwinds for nuclear. Nuclear energy stocks got a big boost this week after US Transportation Secretary and interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy announced plans to expedite a nuclear reactor on the moon. The comments sent stocks such as Oklo, Nucor and Nano Nuclear Energy jumping, with the gains extending into Wednesday's session. But it's more than seemingly one-off comments that's boosting nuclear stocks this year, and the alternative power source has become the hottest energy trade out there in 2025. Nuclear power has come sharply into focus in recent years, with advocates including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and, more recently, the Trump White House. A quick look at the energy sector reveals that nuclear energy is outpacing its peers. The VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR) is up almost 50% year-to-date, compared to the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU), which is up 13%, and the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE), which is down about 1% this year. Nuclear energy is riding the AI wave It's hard to examine the growth of nuclear energy stocks in 2025 without talking about the role of nuclear in the AI boom. AI demand has continued to skyrocket as companies have doubled down on capex plans in the space. Dizzying demand for data centers has created an equally enormous need for power. Goldman Sachs predicts that data center power demand will increase 165% by 2030. That's sparked a search for alternative power sources to support the continued growth of data centers and AI. "It was easy and fast to reactivate nuclear reactors to meet the growing demand for clean energy from data centers," said Alexander Lis, chief investment officer at Social Discovery Ventures. "Other energy sources were either less clean, like coal, or longer to build, like wind or solar." Lis added that his firm considers this demand to be sustainable, as "many big tech companies have already announced their plans to use nuclear energy for their data centers." Last September, Constellation Energy said it would reopen Three Mile Island, with Microsoft set to purchase the power power generated by the site. Eric Schiffer, chairman and CEO of The Patriarch Organization and a nuclear energy investor, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the role that it may play in helping the US achieve AI dominance. "China [is] far more equipped right now from an energy platform perspective," he stated. "Nuclear is a critical piece to ensure we're staying at pace. You can't lose this race over an energy constraint." An under-the-radar Trump trade Schiffer and others believe that Trump's focus on AI will benefit nuclear energy stocks in the near term. "The Trump administration's policy priorities to support AI advancement and the unleashing of American innovation has been centered around a deregulation focus and a markets-driven all-of-the-above energy strategy," said Jeff Le, managing principal at consulting firm 100 Mile Strategies. "It includes an audacious goal of quadrupling US nuclear energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2050." Le added that Trump's recent executive orders put "nuclear reactor licensing, fuel reprocessing, and domestic production, at the top of its 'Energy Dominance' agenda." The cumulative effect of already soaring demand for power from AI and Trump's turn away from renewables in the search for alternative power sources means nuclear has been a big winner this year. Importantly for investors, Schiffer thinks this bullish period will continue for another 18 months or so. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Digital Trends
12 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
From one Dragon to another as SpaceX Crew-10 prepares to return to Earth
NASA astronaut Anne McClain and three of her colleagues are spending their last evening aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after a five-month stay in orbit. McClain, fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of JAXA, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, are part of SpaceX's Crew-10 and are set to return to Earth inside Crew Dragon Endurance shortly after midday on Thursday — assuming the weather conditions are suitable at the splashdown site off the coast of Florida. Recommended Videos McClain and her Crew-10 colleagues have spent the last week showing the ropes to Crew-11, who arrived aboard another Crew Dragon spacecraft. The American astronaut posted a striking image on X on Wednesday, taken from one of the Dragon spacecrafts and showing the other one, with Earth directly below and an aurora in the far distance. 'Dragon Endurance and Crew-10 are settled in for our last night aboard the Space Station,' McClain wrote in her post. 'When there are two crews aboard during handover, we get this unique view from the zenith-docked Dragon looking down at the forward-docked Dragon. Tomorrow, Crew-10 will strap ourselves into this Dragon and head home. But tonight, one more breathtaking view.' Dragon Endurance and Crew-10 are settled in for our last night aboard @Space_Station. When there are two crews aboard during handover, we get this unique view from the zenith-docked Dragon looking down at the forward-docked Dragon. Tomorrow, Crew-10 will strap ourselves into this… — COL Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal) August 6, 2025 In another post on X, McClain said she found it hard to believe that her time in orbit was 'coming to a close already,' adding, 'What a great trip this has been.' In their five months aboard the ISS, Crew-10 spent much of their time conducting science research in microgravity. The work included an investigation into how radiation and gravity environments at different orbital altitudes affect plant growth — important for future long-duration crewed missions to deep space — and a look at how cells sense gravity, with the findings possibly leading to therapies for treating muscle and bone conditions. They also captured images of simultaneous lightning events at the top of two thunderstorms, with scientists using such data to study various weather conditions in Earth's upper atmosphere. The research can help to better protect communication systems and aircraft while improving atmospheric models and weather forecasts.
CBS News
13 minutes ago
- CBS News
Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates
A company in Batavia, Illinois is making butter in a way you've never seen before. No animals, no plants, no oils; this butter is made from carbon. The sustainability-focused approach has the blessing and backing of Bill Gates. It looks, smells and tastes like the butter we all know, but it's made without the farmland, fertilizers or emissions tied to the typical process. This unprecedented process is happening at the facilities of Savor in an industrial park in the suburbs west of Chicago. "So you're using this gas right now to cook your food and we're proposing that we would like to first make your food with— with that gas," said Kathleen Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Savor. The company's pioneering tech uses carbon and hydrogen to make sticks of butter that anyone would recognize. "This is pretty novel, to be able to make food that looks and tastes and feels exactly like dairy butter, but with no agriculture whatsoever," said Jordan Beiden-Charles, food scientist for Savor. And without a long ingredient list the average person can't pronounce. "It's really just our fat, some water, a little bit of lecithin as an emulsifier, and some natural flavor and color," Beiden-Charles said. This is how it works: Fats are made up of carbon and hydrogen chains. The goal is to replicate those chains without animals or plants. And they did it. To put it in simple terms, Savor says they take carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heat them up, oxidize them and get a final result that looks like candle wax but is in fact fat molecules like those in beef, cheese or vegetable oils. The entire process releases zero greenhouse gases, uses no farmland to feed cows, and despite its industrial appearance, has a significantly smaller footprint. "In addition to the carbon footprint being much lower for a process like this, right, the land footprint is, like, a thousand times lower than what you need in traditional agriculture," Alexander said. And the most important question: how does it taste? The answer is surprisingly like the butter we know and love. The company also touts that they do not use any palm oil in the butter, and palm oil is a significant contributor to deforestation and climate change. Of the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases emitted every year, 7% is from the production of fats and oils from animals and plants, which Savor says makes their process the most climate-friendly option. Right now, the company is working directly with restaurants, bakeries and food suppliers. They are releasing chocolates made with their butter in time for the 2025 holiday season. They expect for the average consumer to be able to buy them in the near future. "Savor Butter, in either its current manifestation or with our partners, we expect that to be on the shelves kind of more like around 2027," Alexander said. The teams in Batavia and their home lab base in San Jose, California, are backed by billionaire Gates who wrote in his blog, "The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense." The company believes butter can make a difference. "This is really about how we feed our species and heal our planet at the same time," Alexander said.
