One of shortest days on record expected this month as scientists warn Earth's rotation is ‘unexpectedly' speeding up
The first of the shorter days will take place next week.
1
It's likely all thanks to the Moon, according to
The dates fall when our lunar satellite will be its furthest from Earth's equator.
This can impact the rate of the Earth's rotation, which causes slight variations in the length of a day.
Although experts have not yet confirmed the cause of the change.
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The International Rotation and Reference Systems Service has found that 9 July, 22 July, and 5 August will be the shortest days since 2020.
As much as 1.51 milliseconds will be shaved off the clock, according to a experts.
While that doesn't seem like much, and won't be noticeable, scientists say it's a pretty significant time jump.
'Nobody expected this,' Leonic Zotov, Earth rotation expert from Moscow State University, told
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'The cause of this acceleration is not explained. Most scientists believe it is something inside the Earth.
"Ocean and atmospheric models don't explain this huge acceleration."
Incredible plans for DOUGHNUT-shaped spacecraft to float cargo to Earth
The shortest day recorded since 2020 was 5 July, 2024, which was a full 1.66 milliseconds shorter than average.
Before 2020, Earth never experienced a day shorter than the average by much more than a millisecond.
But in the past five years, it's been more likely to see days during the summer that are nearly half-a-millisecond shorter than pre-2020s levels.
Days on Earth have not always been 24-hours long.
Between the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic era and the Bronze Age, days were roughly only 23 hours.
Bronze Age people experienced days that were 0.47 seconds shorter than what humans in 2025 experience.
Projections suggest that in 200million years, a day will extend to 25 hours.
Earth may need to take a drastic measure to keep up with the new pace by introducing a 'negative leap second' in 2029, according to a study published in
'This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal,' study lead author and geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California Duncan Agnew said at the time.
'It's not a huge change in the Earth's rotation that's going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable.
"It's yet another indication that we're in a very unusual time.'
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Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Irish Times
No one sent up Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun better than satirist Tom Lehrer
For the past year or so, I have been working on a book that centres around the career of the German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. He was, in his time, among the most celebrated of scientists, and one of the most controversial. As the designer of the Saturn V launch rocket, and as a long-term advocate for the idea of rocket-propelled space travel, he was arguably the central figure of the Apollo moon landings. He was also a former Nazi, a high-ranking SS officer who designed and built the V2 rockets on which Adolf Hitler had pinned his hopes for turning the second World War around in his favour. He was smuggled into the US after the war, along with many top Nazi scientists, by an American government who saw a Cold War arms race on the horizon. READ MORE When I tell people that I am writing about Von Braun, perhaps the most common reaction is to ask whether I have heard the song about him by the US satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer. Von Braun has been if not exactly forgotten then semi-successfully airbrushed out of the popular memory of the moon landings. He is now, somewhat perversely, almost as famous for being the satirical subject of Lehrer's song as he is for being an architect of the US space programme. The song, which Lehrer first performed on the television show That Was The Week That Was in 1965, is a brilliantly witty evisceration of Von Braun, whose reputation had by then been expertly rehabilitated by the US government with the enthusiastic assistance of a fawning media. (Before the space programme got going, Von Braun was already a familiar face on television and in magazines, presenting a starry-eyed vision of a spacefaring American future.) Lehrer's virtuoso performance of the song Wernher von Braun is on YouTube. I highly recommend watching it, as I have countless times over the past couple of years, and several more since learning of Lehrer's death, at age 97, last weekend. Everything about the song from his twinklingly melodious piano accompaniment, cleverly structured around Haydn's melody for the German national anthem, to his air of mordant sophistication is a delight, but its effervescent irony belies a dark and morally serious message. 'Don't say that he's hypocritical/Say, rather, that he's apolitical,' Lehrer croons, before shifting to a jokey German accent: 'Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down?/Zat's not my department, says Wernher von Braun.' The beauty of many of Lehrer's songs is their almost impossibly graceful balance of darkness, cleverness and a kind of literate silliness. Listen, for instance, to the sheer comic relish with which he delivers, in the manner of a Revival-era hymn, his bleak prognosis for human survival in another Cold War-era satirical classic, We Will all Go together when We Go. Or his jaunty, old Broadway style ode to recreational avian assassination, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park: ('When they see us coming/the birdies all try an' hide/But they still go for peanuts/When coated with cyanide.') Probably Lehrer's most enduringly popular number is The Elements Song, a joyful, ingenious recital of the table of chemical elements, set to the propulsive melody of Gilbert and Sullivan's Major-General's Song from The Pirates of Penzance. Although it lacks the mordant wickedness of his best work, it's arguably a key to understanding his lineage, and his influence, as a comic songwriter. When Daniel Radcliffe performed an a cappella version on The Graham Norton Show – prefacing it by introducing Lehrer, correctly, as 'the cleverest and funniest man of the 20th century' – it led to his being cast as 'Weird Al' Yankovic in the parody biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Although his influence can be charted from Yankovic to Randy Newman and The Simpsons, from Flight of the Conchords to Bo Burnham, the cultural figure with whom I most associate Lehrer has always been the US novelist Thomas Pynchon. Von Braun has his role here, too, in that both artists had the former SS Sturmbannführer's number, at a time when their countrymen still viewed him as a hero with a merely regrettable past. Pynchon's sprawling masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow is set towards the end of the war, and the V2 rocket is at its centre: one of its numerous plot strands concerns a sexually prolific American soldier whose erections predict the exact locations of the rocket's targets. Pynchon's fiction is filled with characters breaking out into song and dance numbers, many of whose comic lyrics might well have come from Lehrer's subversive pen. Although he was somewhat less uncompromising about it than the famously reclusive Pynchon, Lehrer also retreated, in his way, from public life. By the mid-1960s he was a regular fixture on US television and was touring internationally, playing to packed concert halls in Australia and New Zealand. But he never particularly relished playing live and despite his affable stage presence was borderline indifferent to the admiration of his fans. In 1972 he in effect abandoned his musical career, which had in any case only ever been a sideline, a spectacularly successful one though it was. Lehrer was, by trade, a mathematician; early in his career he had worked as a researcher with the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos and he went on to teach at MIT and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He performed his music only very rarely from the 1970s on. The Vietnam War, he said, had made it much harder to be funny about serious things. 'Political satire,' as he memorably put it, 'became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize.' Despite his withdrawal from show business, Lehrer was always happy for his music to be used by other artists. Perhaps inevitably, his song The Old Dope Peddler – a queasily saccharine ode to the street narcotics retail business – proved a seductive source for rap producers. When representatives for the US rapper 2 Chainz contacted Lehrer to request sample clearance, Lehrer was delighted. 'As sole copyright owner of The Old Dope Peddler,' the then-85-year-old songwriter and retired academic wrote, 'I grant you motherf***ers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr Chainz, or may I call him 2?' In 2020, Lehrer – who had never married and had no children – made the unusual decision to relinquish the copyright on his own songs altogether, releasing them officially into the public domain. It was the last, and perhaps most lasting, act of subversion by a unique and ingenious artist.
The Irish Sun
24-07-2025
- The Irish Sun
Mystery over 2,000-year-old shipwreck with ‘world's oldest computer' that inspired Indiana Jones as boat finally raised
THE mystery deepens around the famous shipwreck that held the 2,000-year-old relic dubbed the "world's first computer". The Antikythera wreck sank in the first century BC off the Greek island that gave it its name, carrying a trove of treasure. 7 A diver explores the second wreck site just off the Greek island of Antikythera for the first time in 2,000 years Credit: Credit: ESAG/UNIGE via Pen News 7 A drawing of an ancient ship with a skiff in tow from the House of the Ship Europa in Pompeii Credit: Credit: Pen News 7 The Antikythera Mechanism is believed to date back to around 80 BC in Ancient Greece Credit: Credit: Logg Tandy via Pen News 7 Among the precious artefacts was the Antikythera Mechanism - an unusual device whose purpose long been debated and which even inspired "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ". But researchers studying the shipwreck are now facing a new mystery after part of the wreck was recovered for the first time since 1976. The newly recovered timbers do not match those found in the 1970s - they differ in both size and construction. This has led scientists to consider the possibility that the Antikythera site may actually contain the remains of two separate shipwrecks - not just one. Read more world news Lorenz Baumer of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who directed this year's expedition, said: 'The measures are different. 'The thickness of the planks found by Cousteau is around 10 centimetres, the ones we have measure around five - that's quite a difference. 'Now we have to find an explanation – is it another part of the ship? It's possible that they've been using thinner planks in upper parts, but that's pure speculation for now. 'Or is it – and for me this could be a possibility – a skiff. Most read in The US Sun 'You see many of those merchant ships had smaller boats with them.' The Antikythera wreck was discovered in 1900 by Captain Dimitrios Kondos and his crew of sponge divers from the island of Symi. 7 The newly recovered timbers do not match those found in the 1970s, prompting scientists to question if there were two shipwrecks Credit: Credit: ESAG/UNIGE via Pen News Greek island offers to pay thousands to move there & you'll even get land Shortly after, over 300 other artefacts, including the Antikythera Mechanism, statues, coins and pieces of jewellery, were retrieved. For over a century, the mysterious device has left scientists scratching their heads. The conventional theory is that it was an ancient analogue device used to track the cycles of the Moon, Sun and planets and predict solar and lunar eclipses. Author Jo Marchant, who has written a book about the device, said it was 'probably the most exciting artefact that we have from the ancient world'. 7 A poster for 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' (2023), starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones Credit: ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. 7 A reconstruction of the Antikythera Mechanism on display at the exhibition of Ancient Greek Technology in Athens shows how sophisticated the device was Credit: AFP A fictional version of the device, renamed the Archimedes Dial, drives the plot in Harrison Ford's hit film, where Indiana Jones is shown diving at the Antikythera wreck. Dr Baumer said: 'It's total nonsense, but I was very well entertained I have to say.' But the theory that the ship carrying the mechanism was accompanied by a second ship has historical precedent. A technical drawing of two vessels - one towing the other - was found in Pompeii, inside the House of the Ship Europa, Dr Baumer said. He said: 'It's very detailed and very precise, so this drawing has been done by somebody who knows ships and also the technical parts. 'You see on the back of the Europa is hanging a smaller second ship.' He also mentioned the Biblical tale - when Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked off Malta, a lifeboat was launched from the main vessel. 'We have two wreck sites,' he said. 'Close to 200 meters southwards there is a huge field – it is all covered with amphorae. 'Chronologically the two sites go together so maybe these ships have been sailing together.' He added: 'We cannot tell if they sank one after the other, or if there was a couple of years, weeks, or days between them. 'But we see we are in about the same period.' The newly-recovered timbers have also revealed that the Antikythera wreck was already old when it sank. Analysis of the wood, which is elm and oak, dates it back to around 235 BC, whereas the ship didn't sink until around 80 BC. This year's expedition also uncovered a fragment of a sculpture depicting a nude male. Some believe the ship was doomed by the weight of the sculptures it carried. Dr Baumer said: 'It sunk very, very quickly because it was, in my opinion , totally overloaded. 'Whenever there's a storm in Antikythera, you're happy that you're not on board a ship, even a modern one. 'It is a very rocky coast, it's impossible to land, and you simply get broken up. There's no chance. 'Even now when the waves are too heavy, the ferry boats do not land on Antikythera – it's too dangerous.' What is the Antikythera Mechanism? The Antikythera Mechanism is a 2,000-year-old Greek device, often called the world's first analogue computer. Discovered in a shipwreck in 1901, the object is thought to have been used to predict astronomical events, like eclipses, moon phases and possibly the movements of planets. It consists of at least 29 gears of various sizes that were made to move simultaneously via a handle. Key parts: Front dial: shows the Sun and Moon moving through the zodiac and tracks dates using a 365-day calendar Back upper dial: tracks the 19-year Metonic cycle to sync solar and lunar calendars Back lower dial: predicts eclipses using the 223-month Saros cycle Lunar mechanism: models the Moon's phases and orbit Gears: the interlocking, bronze gears power everything
Irish Independent
24-07-2025
- Irish Independent
All of the world's clocks may need to be adjusted as Earth is spinning faster than ever, shaving over a second off a day in August
New estimates released this month suggest that the first Tuesday of August will be around 1.25 milliseconds shorter than it should be. The average rotation of our planet is 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds. However, there are several variables that cause Earth to spin faster or slower. The moon's gravitational influence on Earth typically causes it to slow time over time and for days to lengthen. There is no conclusive reason for why Earth's rotation is accelerating, but a 2024 study suggested that melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels could be influencing it. The shortest day ever recorded was on July 5 last year, measuring 1.66 milliseconds shorter, with recent years seeing the rotation speeding up. Scientists have proposed a negative leap second to compensate for the lost time, meaning all of the world's clocks will need to be adjusted. 'This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal,' said geophysicist Duncan Agnew from the University of California, who wrote about the issue in a paper published in the journal Nature last year. 'It's not a huge change in the Earth's rotation that's going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable. 'It's yet another indication that we're in a very unusual time.' There have been 27 leap seconds added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) since 1972, when the present form of the time standard was adopted, in order to match atomic time to astronomical time. This would be the first time that a second has been subtracted, and it is not clear how current computing infrastructure would cope with the shift. Patrizia Tavella from the Time Department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, wrote in an accompanying article to the Nature paper that any potential risks should be assessed before a negative leap second is applied. 'A negative leap second has never been added or tested,' she said, 'so the problems it could create are without precedent.'
