SunstarTV Bureau: The journal Geophysical Research Letters confirmed that a mysterious wobble has spotted which one is moving around the Mars’ poles, and the astronomers are yet to know why it is moving.
As the second known planet in the universe, Mars planet to exhibit this phenomenon – called as the Chandler wobble, with earth being the first, stated the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) on its blog.
According to researchers statement, in a study published Oct. 13, 2020, the poles of Mars wondering ever-so-slightly away from the planet’s axis of rotation, moving about 4 inches off center every 200 days.
Notably, the wobble has named for astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler, who discovered the phenomenon more than a century ago which is an effect seen in planets that aren’t perfectly round.
According to Eos, this wobble has negligible effect on earth, , but still presents a puzzle. Scientists have calculated that the wobble should naturally die down within a century of its origin, but earth’s current wobble has been going strong for much longer than that. Something perhaps a combination of pressure changes in the atmosphere and oceans, one 2001 study proposed seems to be perpetually reigniting the wobble, though the exact mechanism is still unknown.
The Mars wobble is just as puzzling. The authors of the new study detected the wobble using 18 years of data collected by three satellites orbiting the Red Planet: Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor. This small shift in the Martian poles should also resolve itself naturally, the team calculated, but currently appears to be going strong.
Devoid of oceans, Mars and its wobbly rotation may be governed by atmospheric pressure changes alone, according to Eos, but further study of our tipsy neighbor is required to know for sure.
