The earth is moving fast
The Earth is moving faster than it ever has in the last 50 years, scientists have discovered, and could result in a ‘negative leap second’ being added to the year.
The speed of the Earth’s rotation is affected by a number of factors, including the motion of its molten core, oceans, and atmosphere.
The Earth typically takes 86,400 seconds, or 24 hours, to spin on its axis. But the invention of precise atomic clocks in the 1960s showed that the length of the Earth's daily rotation could actually vary by a matter of milliseconds. Until recently, the Earth's rotation was slightly longer than 24 hours. But in 2020, the Earth started speeding up.
"It is certainly correct that the Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the last 50 years," Peter Whibberley, National Physical Laboratory time and frequency group senior research scientist, told The Telegraph on Monday.
Before 2020, the record for the shortest day was set on July 5, 2005, which clocked in at 1.0516 milliseconds less than 86,400 seconds, The Weather Channel reported. In 2020, that record was broken a total of 28 times. The fastest day since record keeping began happened on July 19, 2019, and clocked in 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than average. Scientists predict that days in 2021 will be even faster. They estimate that days are now 0.05 milliseconds shorter on average, which will leave 2021 running 19 milliseconds behind.
Scientists at the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) can calculate when this event occurs by measuring the precise moment a star passes a certain location in the sky each day.
If the Earth's rotation continues to quicken, we may at some point require a negative leap second. If this happens, our clocks would skip a second, in order to keep up with the hurrying Earth.”
These leap seconds have no practical importance in everyday life but in certain fields such as astronomy, navigation, spaceflight, and computer networks, ensuring that calculations and tracking measures are accurate to the second can be vitally important.
"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," physicist Peter Whibberley of the National Physics Laboratory in the U.K., told The Telegraph.
"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."
Interestingly enough, scientists are not overly worried about why the Earth's rotation is speeding up. They say it can happen for a variety of reasons, including the pull of the moon, snowfall and erosion.
The climate crisis could also be a factor, as the warming planet contributes to mass redistribution events, such as melting glaciers.
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