Does the title of my post sound familiar? A song? And the next line is . . . "twenty-four little hours."
Scientifically, that is correct today. A "day" is the amount of time it takes for the Earth to rotate on its axis. But, for over a billion years, a day was only 19.5 hours.
I imagine you're wondering (because that's what writers do) what happened? The sun and the moon did it. The moon's tidal pull on the oceans; the sun's tidal pull on the atmosphere.
For more info, go to: https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/why-day-24-hours-long-astrophysicists-reveal
If you're a regular reader of my posts, you know how much I love world building. In science fiction, we can make a "day" on our world however long we want it. In fact, if our story takes place on different planets, wouldn't it make sense that the length of a day be different on each planet?
Just keep in mind what causes the day to be longer (or shorter) than the one we're familiar with. Like many details of our stories, we writers need to know more than the reader, but we don't need to include the details. We're not writing a scientific treatise. We write fiction. So, we don't need to include the science behind certain things. It just has to be believable.
As summer continues here in the Northern Hemisphere, enjoy the extra hours of daylight. In a few months, daylight will become shorter and shorter. Then comes . . . Oh, no! Not that ugly W word.
Keep reading. Keep writing.
7 comments:
That's information I didn't know about Earth. Though, I was aware that days, months, and years are measured differently on every planet. Tidally locked planets are especially interesting.
In my stories where I discuss travel between the different planets, I always mention how hard it is to connect with people on other planets because of the passing of time issue. I imagine jet lag would be far worse that what we experience switching time zones on the same planet.
I forgot about whether a planet didn't have a moon--or had more than one moon--and how that impacted so many things. Never thought about "jet" lag with regard to interplanetary travel. Great point, Jess.
Does that mean we'd have lost 4 1/2 hours of sleep?! Noooooo!
I'm a "day" late getting to this witty post.
Maybe we will get an extra hour someday soon!
Beautiful blog
Please read my post
Post a Comment