Earth's Day: From 6 Hours to 24 Hours - Unraveling the Mystery of Planetary Rotation

• Earth's rotation, causing day and night, weather, and ocean currents, originated from the solar nebula's collapse 4.6 billion years ago.
• A collision with Theia 4.5 billion years ago likely altered Earth's rotational speed and created its 23.5-degree tilt, leading to seasons.
• The Coriolis effect, a result of rotation, influences global weather patterns by deflecting winds and ocean currents.
• Earth's rotation is gradually slowing due to the Moon's gravitational pull, increasing day length by 2.3 milliseconds per century.
• Ancient astronomers like Ptolemy believed in a geocentric model, but Copernicus and Galileo proposed a heliocentric view, later proven by Foucault's pendulum in 1851.

Why It Matters: Earth's day length evolved from 6 hours to 24 hours due to cosmic events and lunar gravitational forces.