StoneHappyMonday
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 10, 2001
- Messages
- 18,084
Leap second to pause clocks at midnight as entire planet gains a second
Time and tide wait for no man, the saying goes. But at midnight on Tuesday clocks will pause momentarily as the entire planet gains a bonus second.
If you happen to be awake, and gazing at the dial on an atomic clock, it will read 23:59:60 before ticking forward to 00.00.00.
The addition of a “leap second” is designed to allow the Earth’s rotation, which is gradually slowing, to catch up with atomic clocks, keeping official time neatly in sync with night and day.
Last time a leap second was added, on a weekend 2012, Mozilla, Reddit and LinkedIn all crashed. In Australia, more than 400 flights were grounded as the Qantas check-in system went down, requiring the job to be done manually.