As the world's largest dam, this reservoir can hold up to 42 billion tons of water.
Now, you might think that water is just water and it doesn't matter where it is. But that's wrong.
Water has mass, and mass has gravity. And gravity influences the speed at which the Earth rotates around its axis.
As you know, the Earth is not a perfect sphere. It is slightly flatter at the poles and bulges at the equator.
This is due to centrifugal force caused by rotation. The faster the Earth rotates, the flatter the Earth becomes.
However, moving large amounts of water from one place to another changes the distribution of mass on the Earth's surface.
And that changes the amount of centrifugal force present in different locations on Earth.
The Three Gorges Dam moved a massive amount of water from a low altitude to a high altitude close to the Earth's axis of rotation.
This means that the centrifugal force of the water in the reservoir will be weaker than before, pulling more strongly on the Earth's core. As a result, the Earth's center will become rounder and the top will become flatter.
What would happen if we made something even rounder?
The rotation will slow down.
That's right, the Three Gorges Dam slowed down the Earth's rotation by increasing its moment of inertia.
The moment of inertia is a measure of how difficult it is to change the angular motion of an object.
The greater the mass near the axis of rotation of an object, the larger its moment of inertia becomes, and the slower its rotation.
Now, the spin won't slow down that much. According to NASA scientists, the Three Gorges Dam will only shorten the length of a day by a few hours.It was extended by 0.06 microseconds.。
That's 0.00000006 seconds. You can't perceive it with the naked eye.
Perhaps, in the long run, we'll have another second to spare. Thank you, China!