The 2011 earthquake near Japan increased the Earth's rotation speed, shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds. A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. A landscape devastated by the earthquake and tsunami three days earlier is seen in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture Monday.
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