{"id":97591,"date":"2025-08-26T17:07:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T17:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/97591\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T17:07:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T17:07:03","slug":"confirmed-by-science-the-earths-inner-core-has-been-spinning-slower-for-14-years-and-could-lengthen-the-duration-of-our-days-even-if-we-dont-notice-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/97591\/","title":{"rendered":"Confirmed by science\u2014the Earth\u2019s inner core has been spinning slower for 14 years\u2014and could lengthen the duration of our days even if we don\u2019t notice it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earth, the place we live in, is full of magical landscapes: beautiful beaches, wild forests, hot deserts, and all the species that inhabit it.<\/a> But have you ever thought of what\u2019s inside of it? The real core of our planet?<\/p>\n

3,000 miles beneath your feet, under the crust, beneath the mantle, through layers of hot, molten metal\u2014there\u2019s a solid ball of iron and nickel. About the size of the Moon.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s Earth\u2019s inner core. It spins. And for years, scientists thought it was spinning a little faster than the rest of the planet.<\/p>\n

But now, they\u2019ve found something strange. The core isn\u2019t speeding ahead anymore. In fact, it\u2019s slowing down.<\/p>\n

Like\u2026 noticeably. Well, not to you and me. We won\u2019t probably feel it. But it\u2019s enough to show up in 30 years\u2019 worth of earthquake data.<\/p>\n

How do we know Earth is spinning slower<\/p>\n

Every time there\u2019s a big earthquake, the ground shakes, and those vibrations shoot straight through the planet. Scientists record them using seismograms, which are like the planet\u2019s own medical scans.<\/p>\n

A group of researchers at the University of Southern California, led by John Vidale, studied over 100 of these earthquakes\u2014some of them happening in the exact same place again and again, like echoes. The patterns in the seismic waves revealed that the inner core is now rotating more slowly than Earth\u2019s outer layers.<\/p>\n

That means the core that was once a little ahead of us, is now a little behind. They call this \u201cbacktracking.\u201d And it\u2019s not just a fluke. It\u2019s been happening since around 2010.<\/p>\n

The study was published in Nature,<\/a> and while the shift won\u2019t change our clocks or throw off our calendars, it could technically make our days just a tiny bit longer. A few milliseconds. Almost nothing. But still\u2014that\u2019s wild.<\/p>\n

Why is it happening?<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s totally sure, yet.<\/p>\n

It could be the outer core\u2014the molten metal layer that wraps around the inner core\u2014shifting in some way and dragging the core\u2019s spin.<\/p>\n

It could be the mantle, the massive rocky layer above it, pulling at the core through gravity.<\/p>\n

And it could also be both. Or something else entirely. That\u2019s the thing about studying the center of the planet. You can\u2019t exactly drill into it. You have to read the signs, follow the waves, guess with math, and wait for the next earthquake.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t mean that we won\u2019t get the answer but it will take time.<\/p>\n

The core might be more different than we think<\/p>\n

The deeper scientists look, the stranger the inner core seems.<\/p>\n

It might not be perfectly round, as many thought at first. It might be a little soft. It might even wobble off-center. Some scientists think there\u2019s a second, deeper innermost core inside it\u2014a core within the core.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s all just\u2026 happening. Constantly. Right under us. While we drive to work, take naps, scroll our phones, plan our weekends, Earth is turning, the core is slowing, and none of us feel a thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dance of the inner core might be even more lively than we know.\u201d\u00a0That is how John Vidale put it.<\/p>\n

But it matters. And that\u2019s why scientists have been on it for so long and will continue to be. It has taken years to get to this conclusion, but technology is developing quite faster now than 10 years ago, and the next conclusion may arrive closer than we think.<\/p>\n

For the moment, don\u2019t panic; the shift won\u2019t change your day (although some of us will like the day to be longer). This just reminds us that the planet is alive.<\/a> Not just geologically\u2014emotionally, metaphorically. It\u2019s full of motion and mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earth, the place we live in, is full of magical landscapes: beautiful beaches, wild forests, hot deserts, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-97591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}