If your days seem to be going by faster since the Chilean earthquake, it's probably because they have become a little shorter - by about 1.26 millionth of a second or a little more than a microsecond!

The findings were revealed by NASA scientist Richard Gross, who figured this out, by mathematically calculating the disruption caused by the earth's movement, when the quake occurred, early Saturday morning.

Each time the underground plates move during an earthquake, they cause the mass to move everywhere.

When the tremors are very strong, as was the case this time, it results in a shift in the Earth's axis and its mass becomes more compact together - which in turn speeds up the earth's rotation around it own axis - similar to how a figure skater can rotate faster if his/her arms are closer to the body. As a result of the faster spinning, our days become a little shorter.

The last time this happened was in 2004, when an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale, rocked the Indian Ocean, near Indonesia, shaving off 7 microseconds from our day.

Before you get too concerned about losing your entire day, note that even if we lost 1.26 milliseconds every single day, it would take 2,174 years to lose one second!

In fact, Mr. Gross does not believe the shortening of the day can be physically observed, by even our most sophisticated GPS devices. He says the Earth's rotation is changing all the time, due to many different factors and the only reason he bothers to calculate it, is to keep track of how our Planet's orientation is changing - Information that will be crucial the day mankind goes to Mars or Saturn.

sources: latimesblogs.latimes, dailymail.co.uk