Confusion: Scientists baffled as Earth is spinning faster, shortening days
By Dayo Badmus,
Scientists are confused by the fact that planet Earth is spinning faster than normal.
This makes the day shorter than usual.
New measurements by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory show that the Earth is spinning faster today than it was half a century ago. On June 29, Earth’s full rotation took 1.59 milliseconds in less than 24 hours, the shortest day ever.
Scientists warn that if rotational speeds continue to increase, humans may need to remove 1 second from atomic clocks in the meantime.
“If Earth’s rapid rotation continues, it could initiate the first negative leap second,” reports astrophysicist Graham Jones via timeanddate.com.
“It would be necessary to maintain civil time, which is based on a very stable ticking of atomic clocks, corresponding to solar time, which is based on the movement of the Sun across the sky.”
A negative leap second means that the clock is currently over 1 second which could potentially cause problems for the IT system.
META researchers say the second leap will have a huge impact on the technology and will become a “major source of pain” for hardware infrastructure.
“The effect of a negative leap second has never been extensively tested; it may adversely affect software that relies on timers or schedulers,” said a blog post on the subject by researchers Oleg Oblukhov and Ahmed Bygovi stated in.
