Legit News
A 'Leap second' is to be added on Dec. 31
It looks like the last day of 2005 will be one second longer than usual. An extra second will be added on December 31st, but this is not the first time the World has done this. The first leap second was added in 1972 and we have been doing so most years since then. Pretty interesting stuff!
The precision of atomic clocks will be reconciled with the relative variability of the Earth's rotation on Dec. 31, when an extra second will be added to the Coordinated Universal Time used to tell time across the globe. The Earth's rotational speed changes slightly because of tides and other forces, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology recalibrates its clocks occasionally to match them to the planet's time, called the astronomical time scale. The adjustment, called a leap second, takes place whenever Coordinated Universal Time is out of synch with the planet's time by more than 0.9 seconds
Posted by | Tue, Dec 27, 2005 - 11:01 AM
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