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While a negative leap second might be news to the world, a literal earth timeline shift is nothing new. As the Daily Mail noted, since the 1970s, 27 leap seconds have been added to time to keep atomic time aligned with solar time.
Leap seconds are added when the Earth takes more than 24 hours to complete a single rotation, and that has happened quite a bit in the last few decades. Scientists started noticing an increase in the Earth’s rotation speed in mid-2020. We’d like to think that the Man of Steel himself, Superman, is behind this, as he’s no stranger to flying around the Earth to get into it. Over time, but you know the change started to happen last year, it probably has something to do with 2020 and everything that that year made the world go through.
Daily Mail reports that on July 19, 2020, scientists noted that the day was 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than usual, which was the shortest day since day-length records began. The shortest day before July 19 last year occurred in 2005. That 2005 record has been broken 28 times in the last twelve months, and on average, days go by half a second faster now.
However, does half a second of time really matter? For those who live their usual days, half a second probably doesn’t matter, but it could matter for things like satellites and communication relays, which depend on atomic time aligning almost exactly with solar time. This is why scientists are debating the use of a negative leap second. Only time will tell (literally) what they decide to do.
While you wait for that decision, check out this story in which some scientists claim that there is evidence for a parallel universe where time runs backwards and then read about how there is a 50% chance that we are living in a simulation. If all this science fiction talk has you in the mood for some sci-fi, check out our list of the best sci-fi movies on Netflix right now.
Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide creator for IGN. You can follow it on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
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