Earth spinning faster than it has in over 50 years, know all about this interesting revelation from scientists

Quick question. How long is a day? If you said 24 hours, we beg to differ. Scientists have come out with a startling fact that time span of each day has now become shorter than 24hours. The reason is the change in the speed of earth’s rotation, which has increased over the last five decades.

According to Daily Mail report, since 2020, every day is taking less than 24 hours. In fact July 19,202 was the shortest day ever since the scientists had begun collecting data in the 1960s.

The 28 fastest days on record(since 1960) all occurred in 2020, with Earth completing its revolutions around its axis milliseconds quicker than average.

In July 2020, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) had announced that no ‘’leap second’’ would be added to the world’s official timekeeping in December 2020.

Leap seconds refer to adjustment of time, akin to leap years. According to the IERS, leap seconds have been added to 27 days since the 1970s. The most recent addition of leap second happened on December 31, 2016.

And leap seconds are added on either the last day of June or December. This implies that the next potential date for a leap second is June 20, 2021.

A study from observed that this change in the earth’s rotation may be due to global warming. Published in Science Advances, it claimed that the melting of glaciers is partly responsible for the planet to spin faster on its axis.

Scientists claim that on average, days are about 0.5 seconds shorter than 24 hours. The result is that scientists might have to consider deleting a second from time.

Called a ‘’negative leap second’’, it would be done to account for the change, and to keep passage of time in sync with the Earth’s rotation.

Keeping atomic time in sync with solar time is important to keep satellites and other communications equipment in sync.