Saed News: Research by NASA scientists and astronomers shows that Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down, and in the future the length of a day could reach 25 hours.
According to SAEDNEWS, citing Ecoticias, you may have recently seen exciting headlines about “25-hour Earth days” on social media. While this idea does have a scientific basis, a key detail is often overlooked: the timing. Yes, scientists expect Earth’s rotation to continue slowing, but the change is so gradual and subtle that it will be unnoticeable in everyday life, even across many generations.
The idea that days are getting longer is not fiction; it is the result of a constant gravitational interaction between Earth and the Moon.
The same gravitational forces that cause ocean tides act like a very small brake on Earth’s rotation, adding only a few milliseconds to the length of a day every century.
Most of us learn that a day is 24 hours, but NASA’s Space Place explains that if Earth’s rotation is measured relative to distant stars rather than the Sun, the result is slightly shorter, known as a “sidereal day.”
This difference is not a miscalculation but a result of Earth’s simultaneous motion around the Sun. As Earth rotates on its axis, it also moves along its orbit, meaning it must rotate slightly more than 360 degrees for the Sun to return to the same position in the sky. Even the 24-hour solar day is not perfectly constant, as Earth’s rotation speed fluctuates slightly over long periods.
The main reason Earth’s rotation is slowing is its natural satellite, the Moon. The Moon’s gravity pulls ocean water toward it, creating tidal bulges. However, these bulges are not perfectly aligned with the Moon’s position. Friction between ocean water and the seafloor creates a drag that steals rotational energy from Earth.
As NASA explains, Earth is losing rotational speed while the Moon is slowly moving farther away. A useful analogy is sitting on a spinning office chair and dragging your feet on the ground—the chair keeps spinning but gradually slows down.
No human can feel a fraction-of-a-second change in their lifetime. Scientists detect it by comparing ultra-precise atomic clocks with astronomical observations and historical records. Ancient eclipse records from civilizations such as Babylon and China show slight mismatches with modern calculations, confirming that Earth’s rotation has changed over time.
Organizations such as the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) continuously monitor tiny differences between atomic time and Earth’s actual rotation. This is why “leap seconds” are occasionally added to keep time aligned with Earth’s motion.
There is no exact date for this event. Scientific estimates suggest that it would take around 200 million years for Earth’s day to reach 25 hours.
So, while 25-hour days are part of Earth’s distant future timeline, they will have no impact on human civilization or current calendars. By then, continents and life on Earth may already be completely different.
Besides the Moon, other factors can slightly affect Earth’s rotation, such as melting polar ice, shifts in groundwater, and large-scale redistribution of mass. Even massive engineering projects like large dams can have extremely small effects on Earth’s spin.
In conclusion, while we currently live with 24-hour days, science shows that time is not perfectly rigid, and Earth is constantly changing—even if those changes are incredibly slow.
