The shortest day in history was June 29 this year. It was on this day that our planet set a record by making one complete revolution around its axis 1,59 milliseconds faster than it did before. In recent decades, scientists have recorded a slowdown in the rotation of the Earth. The International Earth Rotation Service (IERS) has even begun adding leap seconds from time to time to compensate for the slower rotation (the last time it happened on December 31, 2016).
However, in the last few years, the trend has begun to change and atomic clocks have confirmed that the Earth’s rotation is accelerating. The 28 shortest days since 1960 were recorded in 2020. Now scientists have established that on June 29, 2022, our planet made its fastest rotation.
The previous record was set on July 19, 2020, when the Earth’s rotation took 1,4602 milliseconds less than 24 hours. Such accelerations can have consequences, in particular in theory this could lead to GPS satellites becoming inaccurate.
Also, it is noted that this may have an impact on smartphones, computers and communication systems that are synchronized with accurate time servers, reports ixbt.com.
