Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
It's been in the news recently that the Earth is rotating faster than normal, in fact some sources incorrectly state that the shortest day ever happened a few days ago. While it's true the Earth's rotation is over a millisecond shorter than normal, it's not as short at the 1.66ms difference seen last year.
There are all sorts of subtle global forces which affect the rotation of the Earth, not just the speed, but the location of the polar axis. And the effects of this are important for precision astronomy and navigation so there's a group that specifically tracks these effects
The International Earth Rotation Reference System:
iers.org/IERS/EN/Home/home_node.html
Follow me on Twitter for more updates:
twitter.com/DJSnM
I have a discord server where I regularly turn up:
discord.gg/zStmKbM
If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon
patreon.com/scottmanley
It's been in the news recently that the Earth is rotating faster than normal, in fact some sources incorrectly state that the shortest day ever happened a few days ago. While it's true the Earth's rotation is over a millisecond shorter than normal, it's not as short at the 1.66ms difference seen last year.
There are all sorts of subtle global forces which affect the rotation of the Earth, not just the speed, but the location of the polar axis. And the effects of this are important for precision astronomy and navigation so there's a group that specifically tracks these effects
The International Earth Rotation Reference System:
iers.org/IERS/EN/Home/home_node.html
Follow me on Twitter for more updates:
twitter.com/DJSnM
I have a discord server where I regularly turn up:
discord.gg/zStmKbM
If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon
patreon.com/scottmanley
