August 9, 2022:june 29, 2022, was 1.59 milliseconds shorter than an average day. This means that it was a shorter day than most. But even though it was a shorter day, it still had the same number of hours.
The average day is comprised of 24 hours. This equates to 86,400 seconds. That’s a lot of time!
But in recent years, the Earth’s rotation has sped up. As a result, some days are now shorter than they used to be. This change can be traced back to the Earth’s core, where the molten iron is gradually solidifying. As the core solidifies, it becomes more deformable, and the Earth’s rotational speed increases.
How Does it Impact Life
According to a report by Forbes, a faster spin would mean Earth gets the same position a little earlier than the previous day. A half-a-millisecond equates to 10-inches or 26 centimetres at the equator. In short, GPS satellites—which already have to be corrected for the effect of Einstein’s general relativity theory (the curve of space and time)—are quickly going to become useless.
It can also impact smartphones, computers and communication systems at large, which synchronise with Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers). It’s defined as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on 1 January, 1970.
To solve all this, international timekeepers may need to add a negative leap second— a “drop second.”
According to the Independent, the UTC, the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time, has been updated with a leap second 27 times.
