BBC Science
The powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile could have tilted the axis of the Earth and therefore the days are shorter.
That's the conclusion Richard Gross, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the U.S. space agency NASA.
The scientist used a complex model which won a preliminary calculation shows that the quake could have shortened 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond equals one millionth of a second) the length of each day on Earth.
What surprised most by Dr. Gross, however, is how the earthquake tilted the axis of the Earth.
According to the investigator the quake could have tilted the earth's axis at 2.7 milli-arcseconds (about 8 centimeters).
The same model estimated the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of magnitude 9.1 in 2004 could have shortened the length of the days of 6.8 microseconds and tilted Earth's axis in 2.32 milliseconds of arc (about 7 centimeters).
The scientist said that while the Chilean earthquake was smaller than the Sumatra, Chile managed to tip a little more earth's axis for two reasons.
"First, unlike the Sumatran earthquake was located near Ecuador, Chile earthquake was located in the middle latitudes of the Earth, allowing it to more effectively change the figures in the axis" says Dr. Gross .
"Secondly, he added, the fault responsible for the 2010 earthquake in Chile descends beneath the surface of the Earth at an angle slightly steeper than the fault responsible for the earthquake of 2004."
"This makes the failure of Chile is more effective to move the mass of the earth vertically and therefore more effective to change the figures of Earth's axis," he explains.
"As a dancer"
As explained to BBC Science Gangui Dr. Alexander, a researcher at the Institute of Astronomy and Space Physics at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, it is expected that a movement so strong in the earth's crust causes such as changes in the way moves the planet's mass.
"We know the Earth is not a completely rigid body but subject to many disturbances according to seasonal effects," explains the scientist.
"So a plate movement as he was at the origin of both the earthquake of 2004 as the 2010 course will change the distribution of mass in the planet."
"It's like the effect that when the dancer turns on one foot with open arms and their rotational movement is slow and when closing is faster."
Now with the Earth, says the scientist, something similar happened, since their movement became more rapid shift by the change in the distribution of matter in the equatorial zone.
As explained by Dr. Gangui, although these changes in the position of the Earth are important is unlikely to detect.
"The truth is that any of these movements of large amounts of mass of plate tectonics if they caused a small disturbance in the dynamics of the Earth as a cosmic body.
"But it is notoriously difficult and that we can detect it in our everyday life," he adds.
Megatons of TNT
For its part, the British Geological Survey, (Center British Geological Survey) (BGS) said in a recent analysis that the enormous amount of stress stored for hundreds of years in the tectonic plate boundary where the earthquake occurred, and where there had been no strong shaking from 1935 - released energy equivalent to over a thousand megatons of TNT.
And he did it in a few tens of seconds
The BGS said earthquakes as Chile, which occur under the ocean, seabed displacing raise huge amounts of water.
This causes waves, or tsunamis, which can spread from the epicenter like ripples in a pond.
But in the deep ocean tsunami travels hundreds of kilíometros per hour, nearly the speed of an airplane.
According to the BGS wave caused by the earthquake off the coast of Chile took 10 hours to cross the Pacific Ocean.
Something similar happened in 1960 with 9.5 magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile and unleashed a devastating tsunami that traveled across the Pacific, arrived in Japan some 20 hours later and killed about 200 people.
