A New Study Has Found That Earth’s Days Used To Be Longer Due To The Moon

Over that span of time, the days were 2.2 hours longer than they are at present. The moon was also an average of 12,000 miles farther away.

During one of these intervals, about 650 million to 500 million years ago, the Cambrian explosion occurred, which was a period when a wide variety of life forms burst onto the evolutionary scene. In a second stretch that occurred around 340 million to 280 million years ago, giant glaciers covered the planet.

The moon causing an increase in day length and sun exposure may have contributed to major oxygenation events that led to the complex diversity of life on Earth. Overall, it appears that tidal forces directly led to the slowdown of Earth’s spin.

However, the authors of the study noted that these ideas should be approached with great care.

The research also challenges the theory that a period characterized by the rapid formation of glaciers that led to a mass extinction had a profound effect on Earth’s spin. Instead, the deceleration was due to tidal forces.

The new study was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.