Goodbye to the 24-hour day: from this date onwards, days on Earth will last 25 hours

If you have ever heard that Earth will “soon” switch to 25-hour days, the key word you should question is soon. Scientists do expect Earth’s rotation to keep slowing down, but the change is so gradual that it is invisible in everyday life. Still, the idea is real, and it comes down to a simple tug-of-war between Earth and the Moon.

Goodbye to the 24-hour day: from this date onwards, days on Earth will last 25 hours. If you have ever heard that Earth will “soon” switch to 25-hour days, the key word you should question is soon. Scientists do expect Earth’s rotation to keep slowing down, but the change is so gradual that it is invisible in everyday life. Still, the idea is real, and it comes down to a simple tug-of-war between Earth and the Moon. The same forces that move ocean tides also act like a tiny brake on the spinning planet, adding time to the day one sliver at a time. A “day” is not as fixed as it sounds Most of us learn that a day is 24 hours, because that is how we run school schedules, work shifts, and the alarm clock. But if you measure Earth’s spin using distant stars instead of the Sun, you get a slightly shorter value called a sidereal day, explained i...