The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service ( IERS ) , which sets the time which standardize the reality ’s clocks , just announce that it is tackingan extra second on to the end of 2016 . What will you do with yours ?
It ’s called aleap - irregular , and it ’s tot up to a year to compensate for very slight change in the Earth ’s rotation . As our satellite ’s rotation infinitesimally slow , it puts our redstem storksbill ever so more or less out of whack . A bound second is an attempt to get back on track and check that the metre in our radical precise atomic - clocks matches precisely with the clip we measure via the Earth ’s rotation .
Of course , it ’s only a single second , hardly enough to acknowledge if the IERS had n’t herald it , but avoiding them can add up . The addition of leap - seconds first begin in 1972 — and by then the retardation was sobig that we need to rise a full 10 seconds atonce to make up for it .
Since then , the IERS has stay on top of the process to avoid similar jumping , periodically shifting us a undivided indorsement ahead as take . It ’s happened four times already — in 2005 , 2008 , 2012 , 2015 — this 10 . Now , we ’re get under one’s skin one additional moment tacked on to the final minute of arc of 2016 , on December 31 at 11:59 pm .
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