Latest news with #CoordinatedUniversalTime
USA Today
4 days ago
- Science
- USA Today
The sun is spewing massive solar flares toward Earth. Here's what happens next.
After weeks of reduced activity, the sun erupted with three powerful flares on a single day. That could send solar flares toward Earth, impacting electronics and making it possible to view the northern lights. These blasts of solar radiation, known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, came from the AR4168 sunspot region on Aug. 3-4, according to and EarthSky. It fired its most powerful outburst, an M4.4-class flare, on Aug. 5. reports that the explosions could provide an opportunity to view the northern lights in northern Maine and Michigan on Aug. 8. How Earth's atmosphere shields it from solar flares Although no significant "space weather" effects have been verified so far, one flare might have sent a small burst in Earth's direction. Space physics student and aurora chaser Vincent Ledvina posted on X that it has a 12% chance of impact and could arrive around midnight Coordinated Universal Time on Aug. 7, according to The Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field shield us from most of the sun's radiation, so solar flares are unlikely to harm people or animals directly on the surface. But the bursts can cause problems with technology and infrastructure. Impact of solar flares on Earth AR3038, another area of several active sunspots, also could release more M-class solar flares, the second-most powerful of the five classifications. The strongest solar flares are X-class outbursts, according to NASA. Flares of the M class, which are 10 times smaller than those of the X class, are followed by flares of the C class, B class, and A class, which are too weak to have a major impact on Earth. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has classified solar flares into these five categories. The intensity of the X-rays they emit determines their identification. Like the Richter scale used to gauge earthquake intensity, each class letter denotes a tenfold increase in energy production, according to Flares can last minutes to hours and can be seen as bright spots on the sun from telescopes. CONTRIBUTING George Petras
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Why could Aug. 5 be shorter than 24 hours?
If you seem not to be able to get through the to-do list on Aug. 5, you'll at least have an excuse. Tuesday is predicted to be one of the shortest days in the year, marking the latest time the Earth could see a day shortened by more than a millisecond. Scientists predict that Aug. 5 will be 1.34 milliseconds shorter, according to the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service and the U.S. Naval Observatory, published by TimeandDate. The millisecond mark has been broken a handful of times this year, with the most recent being July 11, according to the data published by TimeandDate. The predictions do not always come to pass, as July 22 had been predicted to be over a millisecond short, but the data revealed that only 0.87 milliseconds were shaved off, according to the Observatory's data. Earth takes 24 hours to complete a full rotation in a standard day, equal to exactly 86,400 seconds. Until 2020, the shortest day ever recorded by atomic clocks was 1.05 milliseconds short, meaning that Earth completed one daily rotation in 1.05 milliseconds less than the expected 86,400 seconds. "Since then, however, Earth has managed to shatter this old record every year by around half a millisecond," astrophysicist Graham Jones wrote for TimeAndDate. The shortest day recorded so far occurred July 5, 2024, when it came in 1.66 milliseconds short. The shortest day recorded this year was July 10, which came in 1.37 milliseconds short. Why is this happening? The Earth's rotation is influenced by the core and the atmosphere, according to Scientific American. The science magazine says that the core's spin has been slowing, though for unknown reasons, meaning that the rest of the planet must speed up to compensate. "The core is what changes how fast the Earth rotates on periods of 10 years to hundreds of years," Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told the magazine. "The core has been slowing down for the last 50 years, and as a result, the Earth has been speeding up." Atmospheric forces cause the rotation rate of the Earth to speed up in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, according to Scientific American. Forces caused by the moon also affect the rate the Earth spins. The magazine notes that on the geologic timescale, the Earth has been slowing, with the rotation taking half an hour less 70 million years ago. Will the sped-up day be noticeable? Of course, you're unlikely to notice such a minuscule difference in your standard 24-hour day. But scientists who track and operate atomic clocks may be facing a bit of a predicament. First introduced in the 1950s, atomic clocks replaced how scientists previously measured the length of a day by tracking the Earth's rotation and the position of the sun. The clocks are also capable of measuring in billionths of a second, or nanoseconds, which are synchronized globally to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If the clocks are thrown off even a tiny amount, it could also throw off computers, servers, GPS signals, and other networks that rely on accurate times, David Gozzard, an experimental physicist at the University of Western Australia, told the Guardian. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Aug. 5 might be a short day, see how much time could be trimmed off
Indianapolis Star
6 days ago
- Science
- Indianapolis Star
Why could Aug. 5 be shorter than 24 hours?
If you seem not to be able to get through the to-do list on Aug. 5, you'll at least have an excuse. Tuesday is predicted to be one of the shortest days in the year, marking the latest time the Earth could see a day shortened by more than a millisecond. Scientists predict that Aug. 5 will be 1.34 milliseconds shorter, according to the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service and the U.S. Naval Observatory, published by TimeandDate. The millisecond mark has been broken a handful of times this year, with the most recent being July 11, according to the data published by TimeandDate. The predictions do not always come to pass, as July 22 had been predicted to be over a millisecond short, but the data revealed that only 0.87 milliseconds were shaved off, according to the Observatory's data. Earth takes 24 hours to complete a full rotation in a standard day, equal to exactly 86,400 seconds. Until 2020, the shortest day ever recorded by atomic clocks was 1.05 milliseconds short, meaning that Earth completed one daily rotation in 1.05 milliseconds less than the expected 86,400 seconds. "Since then, however, Earth has managed to shatter this old record every year by around half a millisecond," astrophysicist Graham Jones wrote for TimeAndDate. The shortest day recorded so far occurred July 5, 2024, when it came in 1.66 milliseconds short. The shortest day recorded this year was July 10, which came in 1.37 milliseconds short. The Earth's rotation is influenced by the core and the atmosphere, according to Scientific American. The science magazine says that the core's spin has been slowing, though for unknown reasons, meaning that the rest of the planet must speed up to compensate. "The core is what changes how fast the Earth rotates on periods of 10 years to hundreds of years," Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told the magazine. "The core has been slowing down for the last 50 years, and as a result, the Earth has been speeding up." Atmospheric forces cause the rotation rate of the Earth to speed up in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, according to Scientific American. Forces caused by the moon also affect the rate the Earth spins. The magazine notes that on the geologic timescale, the Earth has been slowing, with the rotation taking half an hour less 70 million years ago. Of course, you're unlikely to notice such a minuscule difference in your standard 24-hour day. But scientists who track and operate atomic clocks may be facing a bit of a predicament. First introduced in the 1950s, atomic clocks replaced how scientists previously measured the length of a day by tracking the Earth's rotation and the position of the sun. The clocks are also capable of measuring in billionths of a second, or nanoseconds, which are synchronized globally to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
USA Today
6 days ago
- Science
- USA Today
Why could Aug. 5 be shorter than 24 hours?
If you seem not to be able to get through the to-do list on Aug. 5, you'll at least have an excuse. Tuesday is predicted to be one of the shortest days in the year, marking the latest time the Earth could see a day shortened by more than a millisecond. Scientists predict that Aug. 5 will be 1.34 milliseconds shorter, according to the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service and the U.S. Naval Observatory, published by TimeandDate. The millisecond mark has been broken a handful of times this year, with the most recent being July 11, according to the data published by TimeandDate. The predictions do not always come to pass, as July 22 had been predicted to be over a millisecond short, but the data revealed that only 0.87 milliseconds were shaved off, according to the Observatory's data. Earth takes 24 hours to complete a full rotation in a standard day, equal to exactly 86,400 seconds. Until 2020, the shortest day ever recorded by atomic clocks was 1.05 milliseconds short, meaning that Earth completed one daily rotation in 1.05 milliseconds less than the expected 86,400 seconds. "Since then, however, Earth has managed to shatter this old record every year by around half a millisecond," astrophysicist Graham Jones wrote for TimeAndDate. The shortest day recorded so far occurred July 5, 2024, when it came in 1.66 milliseconds short. The shortest day recorded this year was July 10, which came in 1.37 milliseconds short. Why is this happening? The Earth's rotation is influenced by the core and the atmosphere, according to Scientific American. The science magazine says that the core's spin has been slowing, though for unknown reasons, meaning that the rest of the planet must speed up to compensate. "The core is what changes how fast the Earth rotates on periods of 10 years to hundreds of years," Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told the magazine. "The core has been slowing down for the last 50 years, and as a result, the Earth has been speeding up." Atmospheric forces cause the rotation rate of the Earth to speed up in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, according to Scientific American. Forces caused by the moon also affect the rate the Earth spins. The magazine notes that on the geologic timescale, the Earth has been slowing, with the rotation taking half an hour less 70 million years ago. Will the sped-up day be noticeable? Of course, you're unlikely to notice such a minuscule difference in your standard 24-hour day. But scientists who track and operate atomic clocks may be facing a bit of a predicament. First introduced in the 1950s, atomic clocks replaced how scientists previously measured the length of a day by tracking the Earth's rotation and the position of the sun. The clocks are also capable of measuring in billionths of a second, or nanoseconds, which are synchronized globally to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If the clocks are thrown off even a tiny amount, it could also throw off computers, servers, GPS signals, and other networks that rely on accurate times, David Gozzard, an experimental physicist at the University of Western Australia, told the Guardian.
Economic Times
26-07-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
Why NASA is preparing to send clocks to the moon before astronauts arrive
A new lunar time scale Live Events Why it's urgent (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Time runs differently on the Moon . And that simple fact is creating a big challenge for NASA and its partners as they prepare to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 the laws of physics, seconds on the Moon tick slightly faster than on Earth because of differences in gravity. According to scientists, a lunar day runs about 56 microseconds shorter than a day on Earth. That might sound tiny, but in space exploration, it matters enormously.'When you're navigating relative to the Moon, time needs to be relative to the Moon,' says Cheryl Gramling, who leads position, navigation, and timing standards at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Even nanoseconds count when you're landing spacecraft, operating rovers, or keeping astronauts White House has asked NASA to create a lunar time standard called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) by the end of 2026, the same year astronauts are due to land as part of the Artemis programme. The plan involves placing ultra-precise atomic clocks on the Moon and in orbit, linked together much like the network that keeps Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Earth.'Everyone has to use the same reference, or we haven't solved the problem at all,' says Philip Linden of Open Lunar, a non-profit space research this standard, navigation errors could stretch kilometres, and communications between missions could fall out of Moon is set to become a busy territory. NASA, the European Space Agency, and other partners are planning permanent bases, while countries like China and private companies are eyeing their missions. 'It's foundational for everything we want to do in space,' says NASA's Kevin won't just help astronauts on the Moon. It will also be a blueprint for Mars and beyond. 'We need to do things on the Moon to learn how to do them at Mars,' Gramling future lunar residents, there will be no time zones, just one agreed system, though life on the Moon will feel very different. Daylight there lasts about 14 Earth days, followed by two weeks of darkness.
