Earth Is Spinning Faster Than Usual And It Might Mean We Need To Fix Some Time

Earth is spinning faster than usual and we might have to fix time as a result. Someone call the Avengers, because we’ve got a full-on time crisis afoot. A new report from The Telegraph explains how there’s going to be some serious recalibration necessary if we want to get atomic clocks back on track. The story goes that July 19th of 2020 was the shortest day on Earth since records began. A usual day has 86,400 seconds in a complete rotation. That July day was 1.4602 milliseconds less. So, the days are getting shorter. 2005 was the previous short day champion, but that mark was bested 28 times last year. Telegraph’s report indicates that the average day is passing .5 milliseconds faster than usual. Estimates indicate that we could need as much as a negative leap second to get atomic clocks back on the right track with the world as it currently turns. (Does your head hurt? Don’t even worry about it.)

The outlet spoke to Peter Whibberley, a senior research scientist with the National Physical Laboratory’s time and frequency division. He said that their facts on the matter line up right now. “It is certainly correct that the Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the last 50 years,” Whibberley explained.

“It’s quite possible that a negative leap second will be needed if the Earth’s rotation rate increases further, but it’s too early to say if this is likely to happen,” he continued. “There are also international discussions taking place about the future of leap seconds, and it’s also possible that the need for a negative leap second might push the decision towards ending leap seconds for good.”
game will be playable until March 31, 2021.”

If those cosmic shenanigans weren’t enough. Researchers also discovered that there’s a black hole near the edge of the galaxy that’s changing the color of stars recently. For the equally adventurous, a Harvard professor also recently attested that aliens had visited Earth as recently as 2017 and argued they would be seen again. So, it’s been a wild end to 2020/beginning to 2021 for the entire scientific community. If these places keep finding new developments, the new year is shaping up to be about the same sort of terrifying roller coaster that the previous one proved to be on so many fronts.

Do you think the time change could end up causing some problems for software and systems down the line? Let us know in the comments below!