2007-03-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

The term Earth rotation refers to the spinning of the Earth on its axis. One rotation takes exactly twenty-four hours and is called a mean solar day.

The orbit of the Earth around the sun is called Earth revolution. This celestial motion takes 365 1/4 days to complete one cycle. Further, the Earth's orbit around the sun is not circular, but elliptical. An elliptical orbit causes the Earth's distance from the sun to vary annually.

It is a known fact that the rotation of the Earth is gradually slowing. For four and one half billion years, its entire life, it has been slowing down. As the Earth loses its kinetic energy due to all forms of friction acting on it (tides, galactic space dust, etc.) like any other flywheel, it will slow down. From time to time our timekeepers must adjust their super accurate atomic clocks to synchronize them with the Earth's slowing rotation whose day/night cycles we base our lives on.

Scientists estimate that the Earth's rotation is slowing at the rate of 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years. The time it takes the Earth to complete one rotation increases 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years.

Time of rotation of earth