Since 1972, timekeepers have added 27 leap seconds to keep atomic clocks in step with Earth’s wobbly spin. In October 2026, the 69-nation General Conference on Weights and Measures voted to stop: from 20 May 2027, UTC runs continuously. Atomic time may now drift up to one hour from Earth’s rotation, which should last for centuries at least. Why the rush? Earth has sped up, and a first-ever negative leap second (a 59-second minute) was given a 30% chance by 2035 (BIPM).
Sources:
• BIPM, CGPM 2026 Resolution 5:
• The Guardian, 15 Oct 2026:
• Nature news:
• NPL, “The future of timekeeping” (15 Oct 2026):
• Ars Technica (1 Jul 2012), leap second outages:
• Mk 1 caesium clock photo: Richard Ash (2013), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Mk 1 caesium clock, Richard Ash / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons.
Drift visuals are illustrations, not measured data.
Made with AI-assisted visuals. Visuals are AI-generated and narration is synthetic (text-to-speech). Facts were checked against the sources above. Music and SFX are original.
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