This Year Will Be Just a Second Longer

From msnbc.com: Science:

On Dec. 31 this year, your day will be just a second longer. Like the more well-known time adjustment, the leap year, a "leap second" is tacked on to clocks every so often to keep them correct. Earth's trip around the sun — our year with all its seasons — is about 365.2422 days long, which we round to 365 to keep things simpler. But every four years, we add 0.2422 x 4 days (that's about one day) at the end of the month of February (extending it from 28 to 29 days) to fix the calendar.

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