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href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/scientists-baffled-as-earth-spins-faster-than-usual-making-days-shorter/news-story/c2be2098ff2b10dc6d2d96a7a0867bce">news.com.au</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">‘Devastating’: Earth is spinning too
fast</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">2 min readAugust 1, 2022 -
8:03PM</div>
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<p>Scientists have been left baffled after discovering the
Earth is spinning faster than normal - making days
shorter than usual.</p>
<p>New measurements by the UK’s National Physical
Laboratory show that the Earth is currently spinning
faster than it was half a century ago. </p>
<p>On June 29, the Earth’s full rotation took 1.59
milliseconds less than 24 hours - the shortest day ever
recorded.</p>
<p>Scientists have warned that, if the rotation rate
continues to speed up, we may need to remove a second
from our atomic clocks.<br>
</p>
<p>“If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to
the introduction of the first-ever negative leap
second,” Astrophysicist Graham Jones reported via <i><a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/shortest-day-2022#:~:text=On%20June%2029%2C%20Earth%20set,1.50%20milliseconds%20on%20July%2026."
target="_self">TimeandDate.com</a>.</i> </p>
<p>“This would be required to keep civil time - which is
based on the super-steady beat of atomic clocks - in
step with solar time, which is based on the movement of
the Sun across the sky.</p>
<p>“A negative leap second would mean that our clocks skip
one second, which could potentially create problems for
IT systems.”</p>
<p>Researchers at <a
href="https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/"
target="_self">Meta</a> said a leap second would have
colossal effects on technology and become a “major
source of pain” for hardware infrastructures.</p>
<p>“The impact of a negative leap second has never been
tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating
effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers,”
a blog post on the topic, authored by researchers Oleg
Obleukhov and Ahmad Byagowi, claimed.</p>
<p>“In any case, every leap second is a major source of
pain for people who manage hardware infrastructures.”</p>
<p>Scientists Leonid Zotov, Christian Bizouard and Nikolay
Sidorenkov claim the irregular rotations are the result
of something called the Chandler Wobble, an irregular
movement of Earth’s geographical poles across the
surface of the globe.</p>
<p>“The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about
3m to 4m at Earth’s surface,” Zotov told timeanddate,
“but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared”.</p>
<p>Some experts believe the melting and refreezing of ice
caps on the world’s tallest mountains could be
contributing to the irregular speed.</p>
<p>“Earth has recorded its shortest day since scientists
began using <a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/time/how-do-atomic-clocks-work.html">atomic
clocks</a> to measure its rotational speed,”
TimeandDate reported.</p>
<p>“On June 29, 2022, Earth completed one spin in 1.59
milliseconds less than 24 hours. This is the latest in a
series of speed records for Earth since 2020.”</p>
<p>Professor Zotov told timeanddate that there’s a “70 per
cent chance” the planet has already reached the minimum
length of a day, meaning we will likely never have to
use a negative leap second. </p>
<p>However, Zoltov admitted there is no way to know for
certain yet with current technology.</p>
<p>The negative second effect and its potential
consequences echoes back to Y2K theories, where many
believed computers would not be able to handle the
clocks ticking over into the new millennium.</p>
<p>Although Y2K ultimately proved be no more than a mere
hiccup in our heavily computerised civilisation, another
programming limitation was detected in 2014.</p>
<p>A vast majority of computer servers use the same system
that stores the date and time in a 32-bit integer that
counts the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970 —
often referred to as the Epoch time.</p>
<p>On March 19th 2038, at precisely 03:14:07 (coordinated
universal time) the clocks will reach the largest number
representable by a 32 bit integer.</p>
<p>As things are, it is most likely that many computers
will not be able to tell the difference between the year
2038 and 1970. </p>
<p>However, by the year 2038, many 32-bit systems will
likely have worn out or been replaced.</p>
<p>Infrastructure is likely to be the biggest headache to
fix, but planning the change far enough in advance
should remove most major problems relating to time and
date issues with computers.</p>
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