Each of the 28 shortest days ever measured came in 2020.
It is possible this may require shortening the standard time on which much of our technological systems are based.
The Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the last 50 years.
Does anyone have the time?
Atomic clocks make it possible to measure the length of a day with unprecedented accuracy.
Since their development in the 1960s, researchers have understood that the rotational rate of theEarthchanges over time.
Due to these variations, leap seconds have been added 28 times over the last 48 years.
So why is theEarthis spinning faster than normal?
(Interestingly, stars produce a different measurement of the length of a day, known as sidereal time.
But, astronomers convert as needed).
In 2016, an extra leap second was added to the UTC time to make up for this difference.
Since 1972, leap seconds have been added 28 times, usually at the end of June or December.
Today, GMT is a common time zone deriving its local time from UTC,Konstantin Bikosexplains for TimeandDate.com.
Strangely, 2020 didnt seem to go by quickly at all…
However (believe it or not), 2020 was actually the shortest year on record.
Each day was roughly 1/20th of a millisecond shorter than normal.
…[A]n average day in 2021 will be 0.05 ms shorter than 86,400 seconds.
Over the course of the entire year, atomic clocks will have accumulated a lag of about 19 ms…
In fact, the year 2021 is predicted to be the shortest in decades.
Normally, it takesEarth86,400 seconds to complete one rotation around its axis referred to as a mean solar day.
July 5, 2020 ended 1.0516 milliseconds faster than the standard day.
When do we go from here?
Tracked you down with this.
This is my timey-wimey detector.
It goes ding when theres stuff.
Its not pretty when they blow.
In that case,astronomerswould need to constantly adjust their observations to correct for an increasingly inaccurate standard time.
This article was originally published onThe Cosmic CompanionbyJames Maynard, founder and publisher of The Cosmic Companion.
you’re able to read this original piecehere.
Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companionis also available as a weekly podcast, carried on all major podcast providers.
