Spring has sprung!
Twitterpated animals are getting all cuddly, and then it's over.
That was so FAST WHAT HAPPENED?!
We are living in uncertain times.
Our lives are short, and the universe is constantly changing…
Not always for the better OR worse.
It just is…
So let's lay it ALL out there so we can build a bridge and get over it!
Spring get's 30 seconds to a minute shorter EVERY YEAR.
According to the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the year 8680 Northern
Hemisphere's spring will be 4 days shorter!
Spring is caused by the Earth beginning to tilt toward the sun.
It starts on the vernal equinox, which is when the axis is exactly vertical.
Over the next 92.76 days, we'll get closer as the wobble gets more pronounced, and then
summer will start.
The wobble isn't constant though, over time, precession happens -- basically the wobble
shifts -- about 1 degree every 72 years.
This changes a LOT of things…
Summer lengthens, and so does autumn,
The North Star, Polaris is in the north NOW, but thanks to that axis wobble it's changing
ever so slowly.
In 12,000 years, Vega NOT Polaris will be the North Star!
Vega is way brighter than Polaris, so that's nice, but every 26,000 years the two trade
off.
And speaking of North, the magnetic north pole isn't constant either!
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS A LIE.
That's right, when your compass points north, it's not pointing at the top of the planet,
but it's close.
Earth's magnetic field determines where magnetic north falls.
It can move as much as 50 miles (80km) in a single day In 1831, magnetic north was closer
to Canada's Hudson Bay, while today it's 685 miles (1102km) closer to true north; but it's
still moving.
The south pole moves too.
Because the magnetic field is constantly in flux (LOL magnet joke).
Scientists believe as the speed of Earth's iron core shifts the magnetic field also shifts;
but they're not entirely sure why.
Scientists can actually watch the poles moving around thanks to the ESA's Swarm satellites.
Freaky.
And if the north thing isn't freaking you out.
How about something a little closer to home; if you wanted more hours in the day, just
wait.
The days are getting longer.
The Earth and the Moon are constantly interacting with each other gravitationally.
Every year, the moon takes a few centimeter baby step away from us, and every time it
wants to move out, WE PULL IT BACK IN.
Over millions of years, Earth's rotation slows because of this pulling, and our day gets
longer.
620 million years ago, the day was only 21 hours long; every century, the day gets 1/500th
of a second longer.
In fact, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (my dream job),
announced that in June we're going to have a leap SECOND added to the calendar.
There IS a hypothesis, though, that leap seconds could break the internet, literally.
Computers don't handle change well, even worse than humans do.
(NEW SET, REMEMBER).
If some computers thought it was midnight and others thought it was midnight and one
second, havoc would ensue.
In June of 2012, Reddit, Gawker, Yelp were all messed up because of a leap second.
Quantas airlines had to delay their flights because of a leap second bug!
We've had 25 leap seconds since 1972 when the idea was created, but there are more and
more computers around now… so we'll just have to trust the engineers.
In the grand scheme of things, we don't live very long.
Even the oldest person ever 122 year old French woman Jeanne Calment, in comparison to Earth
time… is just a blink.
Because of our limited viewpoint we think things are stable, but the North Pole, the
North Star, how long the seasons or the year or the day is… they're all CONSTANTLY in
adjusting and changing.
Nature is amazing.
And scary.
What do you think of all this?