Α Slight Wobble in the Earth's Rotation will be Delayed the New Year's Countdown by One Seco
- Hlias Frgks
- Dec 31, 2016
- 1 min read
A "leap second" will be added to this year's New Year's countdown to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth's rotation.
The extra second will occur as clocks strike midnight and a time of 23:59:60 will be recorded, delaying 2017 momentarily.
A leap second last occurred in June 2015 and this will be the 27th time it has occurred.
The change is required because standard time lags behind atomic clocks.
BBC
Every now and then a leap second is added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in order to synchronize clocks worldwide with the Earth's ever slowing rotation.
Atomic Time vs. Universal Time
Two components are used to determine Coordinated Universal Time (UTC):
International Atomic Time (TAI): A time scale that combines the output of some 200 highly precise atomic clocks worldwide, and provides the exact speed for our clocks to tick.
Universal Time (UT1), also known as Astronomical Time, refers to the Earth's rotation around its own axis, which determines the length of a day.
When the difference between UTC and UT1 approaches 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added to UTC and to clocks worldwide. By adding an additional second to the time count, our clocks are effectively stopped for that second to give Earth the opportunity to catch up with atomic time.
Upcoming leap seconds are announced by the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service (IERS) in Paris, France.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017
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