The Earth is now spinning faster and this makes scientists a little confused. Even so, changes in the speed of the Earth's rotation actually did not happen recently.
Since the 1970s, there have been 27 leap seconds added to official time to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation speed. The last leap moment was added on New Year's Eve 2016. However, suddenly everything changed in 2020.
On July 19, 2020, a day on Earth suddenly became 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than a full 24 hours. This makes it the shortest day ever recorded. In 2021, the days spin faster, almost 0.5 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours.
"It is true that the Earth is spinning faster now than in the last 50 years. It is very possible that a negative leap second will be required if the speed of the Earth's rotation is increasing, but it is too early to say whether this is likely to happen," Peter Whibberley, senior researcher from the National Physical Laboratory's Time and Frequency Group told The Telegraph, Rabut (11/1/2022).
A negative leap moment will have the opposite effect of a leap moment. Instead of adding a second when needed, what happens in a negative leap second is the deletion of a second. For the record, negative leap seconds have never been used before.
Then what is the impact of the current condition of the Earth's rotation that causes time to pass faster? Could this harm the Earth?
Scientists say that humans in general need another 100 years of this acceleration to be able to feel the speed of time. But for technology that humans rely on, this change can be very problematic.
For example, communication and navigation systems based on modern satellite technology rely on time consistent with the positions of the Sun, Moon, and stars in general. But if these systems die even in milliseconds, they don't work properly, making the tools used to be disrupted.
In the end, studies on the acceleration of the Earth's rotation and time still need to be done more deeply to know the impact on human survival.