Climate change is messing with how we measure time: Study

Struggle to wrap your head around daylight savings? Spare a thought for the world's timekeepers, who are trying to work out how climate change is affecting Earth's rotation—and in turn, how we keep track of time.

Global timekeepers vote to scrap leap second by 2035

Scientists and government representatives meeting at a conference in France voted on Friday to scrap leap seconds by 2035, the organization responsible for global timekeeping said.

NASA instruments image fireball over Bering Sea

On Dec. 18, 2018, a large "fireball—the term used for exceptionally bright meteors that are visible over a wide area—exploded about 16 miles (26 kilometers) above the Bering Sea. The explosion unleashed an estimated 173 ...

2016 will be one second longer

On December 31, 2016, a "leap second" will be added to the world's clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time, when the extra second will ...

About time: New record for atomic clock accuracy

In another advance at the far frontiers of timekeeping by National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers, the latest modification of a record-setting strontium atomic clock has achieved precision and stability ...

Why moving from astronomic to atomic time is a tricky business

Most people would feel they can count on one day comprising the same number of hours, minutes and seconds as the next. But this isn't always the case – June 30 will be a second longer in 2015 with the addition of a leap ...

World timekeepers wrangle over scrapping leap second

Timekeeping experts failed Friday to reach a decision on scrapping the four-decade-old practice of adding extra seconds to clocks, a system opponents say causes headaches in a hi-tech, interconnected world.

page 1 from 3