2009 to arrive not a second too soon // Current

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081226/sc_space/2009toarrivenotasecon...

Wait a second. The start of next year will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone's control. Time will stand still for one second on New Year's Eve, as we ring in the New Year on that Wednesday night. As a result, you'll have an extra second to celebrate because a "Leap Second" will be added to 2008 to let a lagging Earth catch up to super-accurate clocks.

By international agreement, the world's timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world's irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009.

The extra second, ordered by the world's nominal timekeeper, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, will be marked officially at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday in Greenwich, England, the home of what is popularly known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) – Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to the more technically inclined – the standard time for the planet.

So at precisely 23:59:60 at Greenwich, England, on New Year's Eve, there will be a one-second void before the onset of midnight and the start of the New Year. Wednesday will see the 24th Leap Second that has been needed since the practice was initiated in 1972, and will be the first in three years.

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News and Politics, Green, Earth and Science, Science, Current News UK, 2009, Time, New Year, Clocks 5 more

16 comments // 2009 to arrive not a second too soon

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- 0
  
  joestick
- Leap second sounds great!
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  squiffles
- How many seconds they add over the years, all that extra time to get the earth on our timeframe... It's all wrong. Maybe thats why we are now having snow in april instead of november / december. Leave a clock ticking the way it should be, we should be taking our time from the earth itself, not the other way.
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  hack26
- squiffles:
  Actually, we're precisely adjusting our clocks to be on Earth's time frame. If we didn't adjust our clocks then we would have that problem of winter in July.
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  hack26
- Interesting how they say that the clocks are super-accurate and the Earth is "lagging" behind, instead of the clocks not being accurate enough to account for Earth's slowing rotation.
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  pinkerbelle
- :O......is there a reason why the world is spinning slower?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!....is the earth getting too heavy and is having trouble spinning? :o(
- 1 year ago
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- 0
  
  damnneargenius
- I'm going to sell it on eBay.
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  Hendrix_Is_God
- Surely they could have done this ages ago. Because lets be honest no ones clock is on the dot time apart from the main clocks anyway. They could have done this 10 years ago without anyone knowing apart from the time keepers of the world.
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  ruanCurrent
- Considering how fast this year has gone by, I welcome this extra second with open arms :D
- 1 year ago
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- 0
  
  donkeyfly69
- what happens when you're born on that second? when is your next birthday?
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  judyroo
- donkeyfly69:
  Your birthday is exactly one year from then.
  I think you are getting confused.
  There would only be a problem if a second was skipped.
  Similar to leap years, where the 29th is skipped every 3 out of 4 years.
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  bfcooper
- donkeyfly69:
  i think it was a joke...
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  Axeam
- Maybe in 2010 it will only be a nano second--or better yet..a nano year!!
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  maisry
- I guess I know how I'm going to spend New Year's Eve - staring at my atomic clock to see if it takes TWO seconds to get to 12:00:00!
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  hack26
- maisry:
  12pm GMT is 7pm Eastern. So there will be two seconds between 6:59:59 pm and 7:00:00 pm in the east coast.
- 1 year ago
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  reply
- 0
  
  Nuevarine
- What makes a clock 'super accurate?'
  Are these clocks better than my lil alarm clock, just because they're atomic? Who said that their time was the right time? My keeps perfect time!
  ...
  Whatever, I'll just go along with it.
  Yay, Leap Second!
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply
- 0
  
  yesindeed
- How odd!
- 1 year ago
  - flag
  reply

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