On December 31, 2005 a “leap second” will be added to the world’s clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time, when the extra second will be inserted at the U.S. Naval Observatory. This marks the 23rd leap second to be added to UTC, a uniform time-scale kept by atomic clocks around the world. Although you normally don’t think about it, for most conventional uses the “civil” time you use is based on UTC. At the U.S. Naval Observatory, time is determined by averaging the time signals from cesium beam atomic clocks and hydrogen masers (the last being an improvement over the tried and true cesium clocks for short periods of time). [USNO]
Sunday, December 25, 2005
U.S. Naval Observatory to Add Leap Second to Clocks
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