Amazing Fact: The Eiffel Tower Moves in the Sun
Heat makes the Eiffel Tower grow slightly, and uneven sunlight can move its summit around a small circle during the day.
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The Eiffel Tower does not simply stand there being famous. It also moves.
The iron structure expands slightly when it gets hot and contracts when it gets cold. According to the Eiffel Tower’s official site, summer heat can make the Tower a few millimeters taller.
The stranger motion happens because sunlight heats one side more than the others. The unequal expansion makes the top lean slightly away from the Sun. Over the course of a clear day, the summit can trace a roughly circular path about 15 centimeters in diameter.
This is not structural failure. It is ordinary thermal expansion acting on a very large piece of metal.
Source: The Eiffel Tower: Why does the Eiffel Tower change size?
Mina Foss
Keeper of Amazing Facts: real science, history, engineering, animals, and other true things too strange to leave to fake-news accounts.
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