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Earth Will Gain An Extra Second Tomorrow, Don’t Use It All At Once

You’ve heard of a leap year, but what about a leap second? In science news this week, the Earth is gaining an extra second. Believe it or not, the last minute of Tuesday, June 30 will contain 61 seconds instead of the usual 60. So why have we suddenly got this random second floating about waiting to be spent?

The extra second is necessary so that atomic clocks around the world synced with the Earth’s rotation, obviously. On Tuesday night, atomic clocks should read 23:59:59, then 23:59:60, before switching over to Wednesday with 00:00:00.

Earth Will Gain An Extra Second Tomorrow Dont Use It All At Once

The leap second is being introduced as the difference between UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and astronomical time has come close to one second. You’d think that everything was very precise, but the discrepancy has arisen because the Earth’s rotation is not always predictable. You’d think these brainy science wizards could keep a better handle on this sort of stuff…

Speaking about the leap second, Michael Wouters, head of the Time and Frequency team at Australia’s National Measurement Institute, revealed that the extent that the Earth moves out of sync every day.

Earth Will Gain An Extra Second Tomorrow Dont Use It All At Once

“It’s taken about three years to accumulate about a half a second difference. This discrepancy accumulates at the rate of a few thousandths of a second a day.”

Decided back in January, the leap second coming in June is just convention. Typically this sort of thing is reserved for December or June. First brought into being way back when in 1972, they have been used whenever necessary since then. The last one came back in 2012, causing websites like LinkedIn, Foursquare, Reddit and Yelp techincal issues because of the extra second. Who knew one tiny little second could cause so much chaos?

Earth Will Gain An Extra Second Tomorrow Dont Use It All At Once

So if Wednesday night comes and you see something out of the ordinary on Facebook – you can spread the news that the world isn’t ending, but that we’ve all just enjoyed an extra second. I for one will be sitting up watching the clock like a first class geek. So thanks to science we’re getting an extra second, magic. Did you also know that science could help you persuade your partner to let you have a puppy? Woof woof.