Earth to add a leap second today

Earth to add a leap second today

Today, “you get an extra second,” says Geoff Chester, spokesman at the U.S. Naval Observatory. “Don’t waste it.”

International timekeepers are adding a second to the clock at midnight universal time (that’s 5 p.m. Pacific time). Universal time will be 11:59:59 — and then the unusual reading of 11:59:60 before it hits midnight.

A combination of factors, including Earth’s slowing down a bit from the tidal pull of the moon and an atomic clock that’s a hair too fast, means that timekeepers periodically have to synchronize the official atomic clocks, said Daniel Gambis, head of the
Earth Orientation Service in Paris that coordinates leap seconds.

The time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis — the definition of a day — is now about two milliseconds longer than it was 100 years ago, said Chester, whose agency is keeper of the official U.S. atomic clocks. That’s each day, so it adds up to nearly
three-quarters of a second a year.

Timekeepers add that leap second every now and then to keep the sun at its highest at noon, at least during standard time. This is the first leap second since January 2009 and the 25th overall. (The first was in 1972.) Gambis said the next one probably won’t
be needed until 2015 or 2016.

Don’t worry: There should be no noticeable effect or inconvenience on computers or any other technology that requires precise timekeeping because they adjust for these leap seconds, Gambis said.

Earlier this year, official timekeepers from across the world discussed whether to eliminate the practice of adding leap seconds.

They decided they needed more time (no joke) to think about the issue and will debate it again in 2015.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=27723

Posted by Ahmad Mehdi on Jun 30 2012. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry