
Time has always slipped through our fingers, but now it’s literally speeding up. Scientists say the Earth is spinning faster than ever, and that’s shaving precious milliseconds off our days — a shift that could ripple through everything from GPS accuracy to the ticking of atomic clocks.
Not so long ago, experts believed massive projects like China’s Three Gorges Dam might lengthen our days by slowing Earth’s rotation. Now, a new twist has scientists racing to explain why the planet seems determined to spin faster instead.
Back in 2023, scientists were already puzzled by the Earth’s accelerating rotation, while some speculated that global warming and melting polar ice caps might be nudging the planet into a faster spin.
As reported by MailOnline, astrophysicist Graham Jones predicts Earth’s rotation could noticeably speed up on either July 9, July 22, or August 5, 2025. The changes are small but measurable, with days projected to shorten by 1.30, 1.38, and 1.51 milliseconds respectively.
Though it might seem insignificant, even a tiny shift can disrupt satellites and throw off GPS precision. Moscow State University’s Leonid Zotov cautions: “Nobody expected this, the cause of this acceleration is not explained.”
Ordinarily, the Moon’s gravitational pull slows Earth’s rotation, keeping our solar day steady at 86,400 seconds.
Yet major natural events have been known to jolt Earth’s spin. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, for instance, shifted tectonic plates and shortened the average day by 2.68 microseconds.
Atomic clocks — our gold standard for timekeeping — have tracked these shifts meticulously. The fastest day on record so far was July 5, 2024, when Earth spun 1.66 milliseconds faster than the usual 24 hours.
There’s a pattern emerging, with Earth setting records for shortest days since 2020. On July 19 that year, the day clocked in 1.47 milliseconds short. The same drop was recorded on July 9, 2021, followed by a 1.59 millisecond dip on June 30, 2022, with several more records toppled in 2024.
While scientists haven’t cracked the mystery behind Earth’s quickening spin, they’re probing clues in the molten core, ocean currents, and high-altitude winds.
Despite Earth’s solid crust, its liquid interior, shifting seas, and powerful jet streams can subtly redistribute the planet’s mass, influencing the spin.
Currently, we track global time using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), occasionally adding a leap second to keep clocks aligned with Earth’s rotation. But if our planet keeps picking up speed, we might soon face a cosmic first: subtracting a leap second instead.