Every couple of years, an additional second is inserted into earth’s official time—but scientists have decided it’s too much of a headache to keep.
Scientists working with an early version of the cesium atomic clock in 1959. Leap seconds have been used to keep atomic time and astronomical time in sync.Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
This technological solution is designed to make atomic clocks agree with the planet’s rotation and has long kept international timekeeping ticking. So why have scientists decided to abandon the leap second—and what’s at stake?The unit of time known as a second was created using simple division that carved the 24-hour astronomical day—a single spin of planet Earth—into 86,400 parts. There was just one problem: Earth doesn’t actually spin at the same speed every day.
The leap second nudged astronomical and atomic time into sync. But the introduction of the leap second, which was eventuallyin 1972, meant it was necessary to monitor and adjust UTC over time, and over the years astronomical time crept ahead of atomic time by a total of 37 seconds. Introduced roughly every four years, these seconds now represent a major technological timekeeping headache, especially given the rising importance of time coordination in a variety of industries.
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