Geophysics | The day turned a little faster at the end of June, atomic clocks tell us – and even fractions of a second matter

DAY flashed faster than the blink of an eye recently. Midnight came 1.59 milliseconds too early on June 29, no matter what time zone you’re in.

The day was the shortest in more than half a century, according to the atomic clocks.

The short night was measured by the international Earth’s rotation and movement the next organization IERS.

So the change was not too big for one person. One millisecond is one thousandth of a second. Hardly anyone’s night’s sleep or party was disturbed by it.

Deviation however, there was a small surprise for some researchers in the movements of the earth and the passage of time. They register the length of time and days with precise atomic clocks.

Since the 1950s, atomic clocks have accurately measured the Earth’s rotation and its annual rotation around the Sun.

The measured day was the shortest in 50 years. Also at the end of July, one day was 1.50 milliseconds shorter than normal.

A faster day may be related to the fact that large land masses have moved at the poles when the ice has melted on the glaciers

Of course, the rotation time of the Earth around its axis always varies. A day is very rarely exactly 86,400 seconds long.

Measuring the day at different points in the Earth’s orbit already produces a different result.

Therefore, the length of the day is the average of the days. This meridian day is that 86,400 seconds.

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Measured a slightly faster day may be related to the fact that the large land masses have moved at the poles, as the ice has melted faster than before on the glaciers.

This is the opinion of a retired researcher Dennis McCarthy for the CNN news company.

When there is less ice at the poles, there is less pressure at the Earth’s poles. It moves the Earth’s crust at the poles.

The earth looks perfectly round like a billiard ball, but is slightly wider than it is tall. The landmasses rise at the poles and the Earth thus becomes slightly rounder.

And roundness, it makes the globe spin a little bit faster.

Summer dads despite the speed records, the earth has moved to slightly slower days on average. The phenomenon was noted at the beginning of the decade and it still continues.

Accurate measurement is possible with the help of sensitive radio telescopes and quasars.

A quasar emits strong radio radiation from very far away in space. The radiation comes from matter that falls into a black hole and heats up.

Already in the 1960s, radio telescopes in different parts of the world aimed at the same quasar at the same time.

Comparing clocks using a distant object produces a very accurate standard for atomic clocks. And now their accuracy revealed how much shorter the measured day was.

The slowdown one important reason can be seen in the sky.

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The moon’s gravity is so great that it moves masses of water. Gravity causes tides in Earth’s oceans and bays.

The small friction of water still slows down the Earth’s rotation by about 2.3 milliseconds per century.

When the change is accelerated into geologic time periods, it already accumulates in minutes and hours. More than 1.4 billion years ago, a day flashed by in 19 hours.

When dinosaurs roamed the earth more than 66 million years ago, their day lasted about 23.5 hours, according to paleontologists study from 2020.

Earthquakes and storms also affect the length of the day.

It is estimated that the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and subsequent tsunami shortened the Earth’s day by three microseconds.

It may be that the changes measured in the 2020s are only the effect of the fluctuation of tidal forces in long time series.

The slowdown was first measured already in the 1820s, but now it is getting faster and faster, according to the US space agency NASA.

Fractions of a second have everyday meaning nowadays.

Kidding fractions of a second aren’t completely useless fun. Fractions of a second have everyday meaning nowadays.

A good example is navigation using GPS satellites. It is used in almost all smartphones and new cars.

GPS satellites orbit the Earth at a speed of about 14,000 kilometers per hour.

At that speed, a moving clock leaves about seven millionths of a second in a day. This is what Einstein’s theory of relativity says.

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On Earth, the clocks that monitor navigation run at different times. If the differences in the clocks are not corrected with the help of accurate clocks, the navigation would quickly lead to the forest.

An error of around ten kilometers would occur during the day, says the publication published in August Science-magazine.

International the telecommunications union ITU also watches time, and thus even fractions of a second. The measured time and the rotation of the earth must more or less match.

Mismatches of seconds are not allowed under any circumstances. If delays accumulate even for seconds, the ITU can boldly introduce a global leap second, either in June or December.

This is how the atomic clocks stay in sync with the Earth’s rotation.

A leap second was added to Coordinated Universal Time UTC first time 1972. A second has always been added, not removed, a total of 27 times. The clocks were last advanced by a second at the end of December 2005.

If a second was subtracted and not added from the merciless passage of time – and from our lives, it would be the first time.

If the current pace continues, perhaps the second should be removed in three or four years.

It has been speculated that it could affect internet traffic in optical fibers. The flow of bits on the internet is also very precisely timed.

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