Researchers who have recently claimed that the Earth is now spinning backward compared to before have explained how this change in direction is going to affect us all.
Two scientists from the University of Beijing published a paper titled 'Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation', in which they suggested that the Earth's core has been slowly stopping and turning in the opposite direction.
"Here we analyze repeated seismic waves from the early 1990s and show that all of the paths that previously showed significant temporal changes have exhibited little change over the past decade," wrote authors, Yi Yang & Xiaodong Song. "This globally consistent pattern suggests that inner-core rotation has recently paused."
While it may seem a little concerning that the Earth is doing this, the scientists explained that it has actually happened a few times throughout history.
"We compared this recent pattern to the Alaskan seismic records of South Sandwich Islands doublets going back to 1964 and it seems to be associated with a gradual turning-back of the inner core as a part of an approximately seven-decade oscillation, with another turning point in the early 1970s," the paper read.
And now it's set to happen again.
Though it seems like a pretty life-altering event, the authors of the piece have stated that it's highly unlikely to impact our everyday lives... or anything besides potentially the "magnetic field" which could in turn shift the length of our days.
Speaking to Fox10, they said: "An earthquake with a magnitude greater than about 5.0 can generate seismic waves penetrating the inner core, like making a CT scan on the inner core structure along the raypath. For each pair of repeating earthquakes, we compared their results of the ‘CT scan’ (i.e., their seismogram) and infer the inner core rotation from the difference of the two seismograms (waveform shape and arrival times)."
Yang and Song have described the impact as "probably small" - a pretty casual take for a scientist that's supposed to know these things - but they did add that it could potentially have a "long-term influence over decades or longer."
The scientists added: "We'd expect it to rotate westwards relative to the surface of the Earth in the coming years and decades.
"It’s quite exciting going forward. Seismic waves are still the best way and continuous operation of high-quality seismic networks is crucial in monitoring the heart of the Earth in this regard."
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