During the program 'The revolt'last night, David Broncano and the writer Juan José Millás They commented one of those issues that seem taken from a scientific dystopia: Can a human construction alter the rotation of the planet? The answer is yes, even if the effect is tiny. And the most surprising thing is that it has already happened. The protagonist of this story is one of the Most colossal engineering projects of the 21st century: The Dam of the Three Cups, in China.
The dam, built on the Río Yangtsénot only is a gigantic source of hydroelectric energy, but it has also generated Real physical effects on the planet. When filling its huge reservoir (capable of containing up to 40,000 million cubic meters of water) there was a massive mass displacement towards a greater altitude. This did not go unnoticed by scientists.
Dam of the three throats
In fact, it was the own NASA who made the calculations and concluded that this Change in land mass distribution could have altered slightly Earth rotation movement. When changing the moment of inertia of the planet, The rotation would have slowed down about 0.06 microseconds per day. A tiny fraction of time, imperceptible to any conventional clock, but perfectly measurable with current technology.
Although the figure seems anecdotal, it has implications that go beyond scientific curiosity. The most precise time measurement systems, such as Atomic watches or GPS systemsthey must take into account these cumulative changes to maintain their accuracy.
The thaw of the poles also affects rotation
In addition, this is not an isolated case: phenomena such as the thaw of the poles, also indicated by the writer in the RTVE space last night, or the displacement of large masses of water and earth also influence the Rotation of the planetand could force to introduce small adjustments in the coordinated universal time.
The Dam of the three throats Not only has the landscape of the center of China changed, displaced to more than one million people and generated electricity for millions of homes: it has also shown that human works can have a direct impact on the physical balance of the planet.
