EARTH.COM - We often find ourselves racing against the clock to squeeze all our tasks into a 24-hour day. However, had we been residents of Earth billions of years ago, the struggle would have been even more pronounced. Surprisingly, our planet’s day length wasn’t always this long.
A study led by Ross Mitchell, a geophysicist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, dives into the deep past when Earth’s days were much shorter.
This fascinating discovery links the evolution of Earth’s rotation to its atmospheric composition. Timothy Lyons of UC Riverside, who did not take part in the study, marveled at this possibility. “It’s fascinating to think that the evolution of the Earth’s rotation could have affected the evolving composition of the atmosphere,” said Lyons.
The study thereby bolsters the idea that the modern levels of oxygen on Earth emerged due to longer days, allowing photosynthetic bacteria to generate more oxygen each day.
So, while we may still scramble to complete our daily tasks, we can find comfort knowing that we have a few more hours at our disposal than our ancestors billions of years ago.