By Robbert van der Linde
Aug 08, 2023 at 8:09 PM Update: 7 hours ago
Mars rotates faster and faster on its axis. As a result, the days on the red planet are getting a little shorter. NASA was able to measure this thanks to information from the Mars lander InSight. But the space agency cannot yet explain why.
InSight landed on Mars in November 2018. The spacecraft sent information about Mars back to Earth until late last year. In December, InSight sent its last photo, after which the vehicle shut down.
Thanks to the information that InSight sent, NASA calculate that the days on Mars get shorter every year by a fraction of a millisecond. A millisecond is one thousandth of a second. A day on Mars is about forty minutes longer than a day on Earth. This is because the Earth rotates a little faster on its axis.
The acceleration of Mars is so small that only the most accurate machines could detect it. “It took us a long time to have enough information to notice those differences,” says lead researcher Sebastien Le Maistre.
InSight team leader Bruce Banerdt calls it “really cool” that NASA has managed to measure the accelerated rotation of Mars. “Results like these make the decades of work totally worth it.”
Faster rotation not yet explained
The scientists don’t yet have an explanation for why Mars is spinning faster. It may have to do with the molten metal core of the planet. It “sloshes” back and forth, causing the planet to wobble, as it were. That in turn can affect the speed at which Mars rotates.
Unlike Mars, Earth appears to rotate more slowly on its axis. This is because the moon ‘pulls’ at our oceans, shifting the mass of our planet. Mars has no oceans that can “slow down” the planet.
2023-08-08 18:09:26
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