Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says that a dam built in China holds so much water that it is directly slowing down the Earth's rotation. LADBible reports.
The Three Gorges Dam, located on the world's third-largest river, the Yangtze, was built in 2012 in China's Hubei province and is the world's largest hydroelectric power station. It is 2,335 meters long and 185 meters high.
The dam holds about 40 cubic kilometers of water, or about 10 trillion gallons. The water is stored 175 meters above sea level, giving it serious weight and energy. According to Fong Chao, the Three Gorges caused a small but noticeable change in the Earth's rotation, as a result of which the day increased by 0.06 microseconds and the planet's axis shifted by about 2 centimeters.
"For reference, this amounts to a bit more than 3 days over the entire age of the universe," explains Dr. Chao.
The slowing of Earth's rotation is caused not so much by the dam itself, but by the amount of water it holds. The volume of this water shifts the mass of the planet and slightly slows its rotation. According to NASA scientists, the water in the dam has shifted the distribution of Earth's mass. This change has increased the planet's moment of inertia.
Dr. Chao notes that every time mass shifts, the Earth's rotation also changes.
"The effect is very small, but measurable," the scientist notes.