At this time, one day on Earth equals about 24 hours. As it turned out, this was not always the case in the past.
Researchers from the United States some time ago managed to reveal the duration of one day from time to time through research. They combined astronomical theory with geochemical structures embedded in ancient rocks.
The purpose of this is that the researchers looked at the ratio of copper and aluminum content in Xiamaling sedimentary rocks in northern China that were 1.4 billion years old as the phenomenon of climate change occurred.
In addition, they also did the same on Walvis Ridge, an underwater mountain range, 55 million years ago in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
As a result, it is said that billions of years ago, one day on Earth was 5 hours faster. To be precise, 1.4 billion years ago, one day, or the same time as the Earth in making one complete rotation on its axis, lasted 18 hours 41 minutes, as we quoted from The Guardian.
The discovery also reveals that, on average, the duration of a day on Earth has slowed by about 1/74,000 of a second per year since the Precambrian era which has continued for millions, even billions of years. The Precambrian is a period related to Earth's geology that lasted 4.5 billion to 541 million years ago.
The distance between the Moon and Earth is one of the causes of the phenomenon of changes in the duration of one day. As the Earth's rotation continues to slowly slow down, the Moon is moving further and further away from the Blue Planet.
Stephen Meyers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Alberto Malinverno of Columbia University, the two researchers responsible for this finding, said that in 1.4 billion years the distance from the Moon to Earth was only 44,000 km, but now it touches 384,400 km.
Not only that, the Moon is predicted to experience a period that makes it invisible to all people in the world. During this time, which is thought to be far from the current time, the Moon can only be seen from one side of the Earth, and that distance will persist consistently.