Scientists say that the duration of the day on Earth is increasing. Astronomers have picked up unknown radio signals from space.

 Specialists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison suggested that 1.4 billion years ago when the Moon was closer, a day on Earth was only 18 hours long, the Independent reports.

The fact is that the distance to the Moon affects the rotation speed of our planet. Steven Myers, a professor of geological sciences at Wisconsin and co-author of the study, said the moon's increasing distance from Earth is slowing its rotation on its axis.

Scientists used a statistical method that combines astrophysics and geology to learn about the geological history of the Earth called TimeOpt. It allows for to reconstruction of the history of the solar system based on astronomical and geological observations. It was established that the Moon is gradually moving away from the Earth (3.85 centimeters per year).

All celestial bodies have gravitational fields that affect cosmic 'neighbors', the amount of solar energy received, and the climate. Climatic data for the ancient period of the Earth was obtained from a 90 million-year-old study of sedimentary rocks. Coupled with the observed speed of the Moon's retreat, it was possible to do so. assume that the days were shorter before and will become longer in the future.

Astronomers at the University of Keele (UK) captured signals from previously unknown stars and distant galaxies for the first time. Their source is the Large Magellanic Cloud. The new discovery was announced in an article published in the monthly journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021MNRAS.506.3540P/abstract).

Scientists used the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio interferometer to study the structure of an irregular galaxy adjacent to the Milky Way. It lies 158,200 light-years from Earth and contains tens of millions of stars. Astronomers have examined the Tarantula Nebula, among other things. This is the most active star-forming region in the Local Group of Galaxies.

A slight surprise was catching a radio emission from distant galaxies. According to the lead author of the study, Clara Pennock, the new detailed image reveals thousands of cosmic radio sources that were previously unknown or visible. Most of them are actually galaxies located billions of light-years from the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Typically, such galaxies are detected by the activity of supermassive black holes at their centers. New scientific advances and better instruments are allowing astronomers to detect them as well, thanks to the regions where stars are formed.