How many seconds in a minute?
Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:55 am
If you answered 60 then sorry, not all the time!
Today is a leap day and involves a leap minute.
The last minute of today will be 61 seconds long.
A "Solar Day" is how long hte Earth takes to revolve 360 degrees.
It is just over 84,600 seconds (24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds).
It isn't exactly 84,600 seconds due to the effect of the gravitaional pull of the Moon and Sun.
Because the variation is not consistent it is impossible to program clocks to adjust themselves automatically.
So what happens over time is that the variable Solar Day makes everything out of wack with the Atomic Clocks that just about everything now relies on.
This extra second added on will bring the Solar Day and atomic clocks back in sync.
Fascinating for us closet nerds!
Today is a leap day and involves a leap minute.
The last minute of today will be 61 seconds long.
A "Solar Day" is how long hte Earth takes to revolve 360 degrees.
It is just over 84,600 seconds (24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds).
It isn't exactly 84,600 seconds due to the effect of the gravitaional pull of the Moon and Sun.
Because the variation is not consistent it is impossible to program clocks to adjust themselves automatically.
So what happens over time is that the variable Solar Day makes everything out of wack with the Atomic Clocks that just about everything now relies on.
This extra second added on will bring the Solar Day and atomic clocks back in sync.
Fascinating for us closet nerds!
