Leap Second

For the first time in 7 years, it has happened. A leap second has been inserted into our time. I captured it when it happened. It occurred just before 2006 January 1 00:00 Universal Time, and was called 2005 December 31 23:59:60 UT. I was in the Eastern Time Zone, with Eastern Standard Time when this happened. Universal Time is related to Greenwich Mean Time, and is a standard time over the entire world that is the same in all zones. It is supposed to be the time in the United Kingdom, and is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. So for me it occurred at 2005 December 31 19:00:00, and before that was the time 2005 December 31 18:59:60, which is the time you see in my capturing (click on "captured") above, which was captured from nist.time.gov.

Leap seconds are inserted into the calendar because the Earth is not as accurate as Cesium 133 for telling the time. It used to be that the second was defined as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year 1900. When atomic clocks were invented, it was redefined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations between two hyperfine levels of Cesium 133 atoms. The calendar year varies in length in comparison to this, so to keep it even with the atomic year, every once in a while an extra second has to be added to the year. It has happened 21 times since 1972. The reason why the Earth is going off time is because tides are slowing down its rotation. The tides are also lengthening the month and making the Moon recede from the Earth. Supposedly in 50 billion years, both month and day will be 47 of our days long, but before that happens, the Sun will become a red giant and evaporate the oceans.

So now I will add in a leap "p" and wish everyone a Happpy New Year!