Some upcoming summer days are literally shorter. Even if it is only through milliseconds.
Although the change is not noticeable, Wednesday may be technically the shortest day you will ever experience. This is because the earth has completed its rotation faster than the average 86,400 seconds by about 1.3 to 1.6 milliseconds.
“In other words, we don’t travel back to the Mesozoikum in relation to the rotation,” reports Popular Mechanics. “The planet will ultimately continue its constant slowdown – this is of course its natural tendency, but surface changes such as polar ice melt can also contribute to slowing down the rotation of the earth.”
This phenomenon is invisible to daily life, but is of considerable importance for high -precision time measuring systems such as atomic clocks, GPS and satellite networks.
Scientists from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service attribute the acceleration of subtle shift in the orbital orientation of the moon, which circulates the further equator of the earth this summer, has reduced the “tidal brake effect”, which usually slowed down the spin of our planet.
Others, such as the astronomer of Moscow State University, Leonid Zotov, said that the cause of this acceleration was unexplained.
“Most scientists believe that it is something on earth,” he said to Timanddate.com. “Ocean and atmospheric models do not explain this enormous acceleration.”
This increase in rotary speed marks the sixth occurrence of unusually fast days since 2020, with similar events probably take place on July 22nd and August 5th.
In response to the minor change, the service for international earth torture and reference systems are now considering a negative jump, a rare adaptation that draws the time from the coordinated universal period to the newnchronization of the watches with the earth’s earth.
Such a correction has never been made before, but the growing trend can require one around 2029.