{"id":27693,"date":"2025-07-19T00:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T04:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=27693"},"modified":"2025-07-19T00:00:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T04:00:36","slug":"wth-planet-spins-faster-than-ever-before-july-9-breaks-earths-speed-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=27693","title":{"rendered":"<h2>WTH! Planet Spins Faster Than Ever Before | July 9 Breaks Earth&#8217;s Speed Record<\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27694\" src=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-18-at-11.51.34-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"588\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-18-at-11.51.34-PM.png 588w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-18-at-11.51.34-PM-300x121.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>On July 9, 2025, Earth spun a little faster than usual, enough to make the day about 1.3 to 1.6 milliseconds shorter than the standard 24 hours.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ad-unit-1\" class=\"ad-unit\"><\/div>\n<p>That may not sound like much, but it was the shortest day since modern records began.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"hawk-base hawk-processed\" data-block-type=\"embed\" data-render-type=\"fte\" data-skip=\"dealsy\" data-widget-type=\"seasonal\" data-widget-id=\"a93b0408-7b3e-41c3-8564-30a51e01bd1a\" data-result=\"missing\"><\/aside>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a one-off either. Scientists expect two more short days this summer, on July 22 and Aug. 5, all thanks, in part, to the moon.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-makes-earth-spin-faster-3\">What makes Earth spin faster?<\/h2>\n<p><a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"6101089511941560266\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"Earth\">Earth<\/a>\u00a0doesn&#8217;t rotate at a perfectly constant speed. While we define a day as 24 hours, in reality, the length of a day can vary slightly from one day to the next due to both internal and external forces acting on the planet.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ad-unit-2\" class=\"ad-unit\"><\/div>\n<p>Over long timescales, Earth&#8217;s rotation is actually gradually slowing down, largely because of tidal friction from the moon.\u00a0<a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/55-earths-moon-formation-composition-and-orbit.html\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/55-earths-moon-formation-composition-and-orbit.html\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/55-earths-moon-formation-composition-and-orbit.html\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"1059015109064543839\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"The moon\">The moon<\/a>&#8216;s gravity pulls on Earth&#8217;s oceans, creating tidal bulges that act like a brake. This adds about 2 milliseconds to the length of a day\u00a0<a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2016\/dec\/07\/earths-day-lengthens-by-two-milliseconds-a-century-astronomers-find\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2016\/dec\/07\/earths-day-lengthens-by-two-milliseconds-a-century-astronomers-find\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"1091682815651294006\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"every century.\">every century.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But over shorter timescales, days to months, Earth&#8217;s spin can actually speed up and that&#8217;s what happened on July 9, and will also happen on July 22 and Aug. 5.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jwplayer__widthsetter\"><\/div>\n<h2 id=\"the-moon-s-role-3\">The moon&#8217;s role<\/h2>\n<p>On July 9, the moon was at its maximum declination, meaning it was positioned farthest from Earth&#8217;s equator. This creates an off-center gravitational pull that slightly changes Earth&#8217;s axial wobble, leading to a small but measurable increase in rotational speed.<\/p>\n<p>That unusual lunar alignment is the primary cause of the shortened day. Two more high-declination alignments \u2014 on July 22 and Aug. 5 \u2014 are expected to create similar effects according to the\u00a0<a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/earth-shortest-day-in-history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/earth-shortest-day-in-history\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"4197031753492926319\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"BBC Sky at Night Magazine\">BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\" class=\"text-copy bodyCopy auto\">\n<h2 id=\"could-we-lose-a-second-3\">Could we lose a second?<\/h2>\n<p>Yes, and it would be a historic first.<\/p>\n<p>When Earth&#8217;s rotation slows down over time, scientists add a &#8220;leap second&#8221; to Coordinated Universal Time (<a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/what-is-utc.html\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/what-is-utc.html\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/what-is-utc.html\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"8215271427304389399\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"UTC\">UTC<\/a>) to keep civil time aligned with Earth&#8217;s actual spin. This usually happens every few years. The last time it occurred\u00a0<a class=\"hawk-link-parsed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/33361-leap-second-2016-atomic-clocks.html\" data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/33361-leap-second-2016-atomic-clocks.html\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/33361-leap-second-2016-atomic-clocks.html\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"1362739650365189377\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" data-label=\"was in 2016\">was in 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Leap seconds work like this: if Earth falls more than 0.9 seconds out of sync with TAI, the IERS steps in to add a second to the clock, typically on June 30 or Dec. 31.<\/p>\n<p>But now, with Earth spinning faster, we&#8217;re facing the opposite problem. If this trend continues, we could soon be ahead of atomic time, which would require removing a second instead.<\/p>\n<p>This would be called a negative leap second, and it&#8217;s never been done before.<\/p>\n<p>Some scientists predict that if Earth&#8217;s rotation continues to speed up by just a few more milliseconds each year, a negative leap second might be needed around 2029, according to BBC Sky at Night Magazine, though the exact timing depends on future measurements.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-copy\"><\/div>\n<p>____<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/earth\/did-you-feel-it-earth-just-had-one-of-its-shortest-days-ever-and-2-more-are-coming\">https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/earth\/did-you-feel-it-earth-just-had-one-of-its-shortest-days-ever-and-2-more-are-coming<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}