<p class="FreeForm"><strong>February's Chile <a href="http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/earthquake-profile.html">earthquake</a> was so powerful that it likely shifted an <a href="http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/earth.html">Earth</a> axis and shortened the length of a day—a NASA revelation that helped make this story National Geographic News's tenth most visited of 2010.</strong></p>
<p class="FreeForm">By speeding up Earth's rotation, the magnitude 8.8 earthquake—the fifth strongest ever recorded, according to the <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/">USGS</a>—should have shortened an Earth day by 1.26 millionths of a second, according to new computer-model calculations by geophysicist Richard Gross of <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/">NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a> in California.</p>
<p><strong><a id="n27v" title="READ FULL STORY >>" href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100302-chile-earthquake-earth-axis-shortened-day/">Full story >></a></strong></p>
10. Quake Altered Axis, Changed Time
February's Chile earthquake was so powerful that it likely shifted an Earth axis and shortened the length of a day—a NASA revelation that helped make this story National Geographic News's tenth most visited of 2010.
By speeding up Earth's rotation, the magnitude 8.8 earthquake—the fifth strongest ever recorded, according to the USGS—should have shortened an Earth day by 1.26 millionths of a second, according to new computer-model calculations by geophysicist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Top Ten Discoveries of 2010: Nat Geo News's Most Popular
A time-bending earthquake, a fish with "hands," and "Yoda bat" are among National Geographic News's most visited coverage of 2010 discoveries.
