Earth has just recorded its shortest day - and the effects could be 'devastating'
Earth recorded its shortest day on record on June 29, completing one rotation in 1.59 milliseconds in under 24 hours. Scientists aren’t sure what caused the slightly faster rotation, but speculate it could be related to climate change, tides, or even the Earth’s layers. The irregular rotation created the need for something known as a leap second, a second added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which keeps our clocks as close to solar time – the movement of the sun – as possible. Watch the latest News on Channel 7 or stream for free on 7plus >> So far, Earth’s rotation has mostly slowed over time, so only positive leap seconds were added to the atomic clock to compensate, but it was only recently revealed that on June 29, Earth’s rotation was recorded to be spinning faster than usual. “If Earth’s fast rotation continues, it could lead to the introduction of the first negative leap second,” a story published on the timeanddate website warns. A negative leap second is a second t