Fact

Days were shorter when dinosaurs were alive

Late Cretaceous days ran about 23 and a half hours. Growth rings in shells recorded it.

1 min read

Because Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing, the day has been lengthening throughout history. Daily growth bands in fossil molluscs let researchers count days per year directly: one Cretaceous shell yielded 372 days in a year, implying a day of roughly 23.5 hours.

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