The 'New York Post' reports that scientists have been left confounded after discovering that the Earth is spinning faster than normal.
According to the UK's National Physical Laboratory, the Earth is spinning faster than it was half a century ago, causing days to be shorter than usual.
On June 29, the Earth took 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours to make its full rotation.
It was the shortest day ever recorded.
“,” astrophysicist reported via .
If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first-ever negative leap second, Graham Jones, Astrophysicist, via TimeandDate.com.
This would be required to keep civil time —
which is based on the super-steady beat
of atomic clocks — in step with solar time,
which is based on the movement
of the sun across the sky, Oleg Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi,
Blog post, via 'New York Post'.
According to researchers at Meta, the introduction of a leap second would have a huge impact on technology and hardware infratructures.
The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers, Oleg Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi,
Blog post, via 'New York Post'.
According to scientists, the irregular rotations are caused by the Chandler Wobble, an irregular movement of Earth's geographical poles.
