The rotation of the ground is slowing down and it may turn out that we have oxygen for life
Ever since its formation about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth’s rotation has gradually slowed down and its days gradually longer as a result.
Although the delay of the Earth is not noticeable for human gardens, it is sufficient to make significant changes compared to the enoni. One of these changes is probably the most important of all, at least for us: the extension of the days is related to the oxygenation of the earth’s atmosphere, according to a 2021 study.
In particular, the blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria), which appeared and spread about 2.4 billion years ago, could produce more oxygen as a metabolic by-product because the days of Earth have grown longer.
“The durable question of the Earth’s science is how the earth’s atmosphere received its oxygen and what factors were controlled when this oxygenation was held,” explained the microbiologist Gregory Dick of the University of Michigan in 2021.
“Our studies suggest that the speed at which the Earth rotates – in other words, the length of its day – may have had an important effect on the model and time of the oxygenation of the Earth.”
There are two main components in this story that at first glance do not seem to have much in common. The first is that the rotation of the earth slows down.
The reason for slowing down is to slow down because the moon exercises gravitational pulling on the planet, which causes rotary delay as the moon gradually pulls away.
We know, based on the fossil records that the days were just 18 hours of length 1 billion years ago and Half an hour shorter than today they are 70 million years ago. Evidence shows we win 1.8 milliseconds per centuryS
The second component is something known as the large oxidation event – when cyanobacteria appeared in such a large amount that the earth’s atmosphere experienced a sharp, significant increase in oxygen.
Without this oxidation, scientists believe that life, as we know, could not appear; So, although Cyanobacteria can handle a little side eyes today, we probably wouldn’t be here without them.
Microbiologist Gregory Dick of Michigan University. (Michigan University)
There are many more things that we do not know about this event, including such burning questions, why it happened when it happened and not somewhere earlier in the history of the Earth.
Scientists needed cyanobacterial germs to connect the points. In the sink of the Middle Island, Lake Huron can be found microbial mats, which are thought to be an analogue of cyanobacteria responsible for the great oxidation event.
Purple cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen through photosynthesis and white germs that metabolize sulfur, compete in a microbial bed of the lake.
At night, the white germs rise to the top of the microbial mat and do their own sulfur mixing. When the day breaks down and the sun rises high enough in the sky, the white germs withdraw and purple cyanobacteria rise to the top.
“Now they can start photosynthesizing and producing oxygen,” says geomicrobiologist Judith Claut of the Max Planck Marine Microbiology Institute in Germany.
“However, it takes a few hours before they really continue, there is a long delay in the morning. Cyanobacteria are quite late risers than morning people, it looks.”
This means that the window of the day when cyanobacteria can pump oxygen is very limited – and it is this fact that attracted the attention of the oceanographer Brian Arbic of the University of Michigan. He wondered if the change in the length of the day above the history of the Earth had an impact on photosynthesis.
“This type of competition between germs may contribute to the delay in the production of oxygen in the early land,” Klyth explained.
To demonstrate this hypothesis, the team performed experiments and measurements of germs, both in their natural environment and in a laboratory setting. They also conducted detailed modeling studies based on their results to connect sunlight to the production of microbial oxygen and the production of microbial oxygen to the history of the Earth.
“Intuition suggests that two 12-hour days should be similar to a 24-hour day. The sunlight rises and falls twice as fast, and the production of oxygen follows in the lock,” explained the Maritime Scientist Arjun Cuns of the Leibnis Tropical Marine Research Center in Germany.
“But the release of oxygen from bacterial mats is not, as it is limited by the speed of molecular diffusion. This fine separation of oxygen release from sunlight is at the heart of the mechanism.”
These results were included in global oxygen levels and the team found that the prolongation of the days were associated with the increase in oxygen on the ground – not only to the large oxidation event, but also another, second atmospheric oxygenation called non -surrosoic oxygenation about 550 to 800 million years ago.
“We bind the laws of physics working on many different scales, from molecular diffusion to planetary mechanics. We show that there is a major connection between the length of the day and how much oxygen can be released from germs that are located on Earth,” Chen said.
“This is quite exciting. In this way, we associate the dance of the molecules in the microbial mat with the dance on our planet and its moon.”
The study has been published in GumsS
A larger version of this article was published in August 2021.