How will you spend your bonus time on June 30?

NASA ^ | June 30, 2012 | Elizabeth Zubritsky

[upchuck]

Bump! Love your tagline.

[Bryanw92]

>>Solution: Blame the moon.

Good thinking. If in doubt, blame the biggest white thing you can see. I’m getting the hang of this “livin’ in the Obamanation” thing.

[garyb]

My goodness but NASA can't even tell a story about time correctly, how can we believe them about global warming?

First paragraph:

If the day seems a little longer than usual on Saturday, June 30, 2012, that's because it will be. An extra second, or “leap” second, will be added at midnight ....

— Midnight in which time zone? Actually the leap second is added at midnight UTC or at 19:59:60 EDT.

— the third to last paragraph does mention that the extra second is inserted into UTC at 23:59:60.

Second to Last paragraph:

In the meantime, leap seconds will continue to be added to the official UTC timekeeping. The 2012 leap second is the 35th leap second to be added and the first since 2008.

— this leap second will be the 25th since 1972 and only the first since 2008

the Wikepedia report does a better job:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
This leap second can be either positive or negative depending on the Earth's rotation. Since the first leap second in 1972, all leap seconds have been positive and there were 23 leap seconds in the 34 years to January, 2006.

[bgill]

That’s just more time for Hussein to destroy America.

[Verginius Rufus]

Bill Clinton got a whole extra day in office to plot harm to the country. February 29, 2000, was the first time since the ratification of the Constitution that February had an extra day in a year ending in two zeroes.

[Former War Criminal]

I’m going to make love.

[Erasmus]

The solar day fluctuates very slightly due to complications in the earth’s rotation. Most of these fluctuations affect both solar and sidereal days; I think the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit also affects solar time.

[For those who are unfamiliar with this, siderial time is measured by Earth’s rotation against the (almost) fixed stars, whereas solar time, which is measured by UT1, is measured by its rotation against the Sun. Because the Earth also orbits the Sun in the same direction as its rotation, it takes one additional revolution to complete a solar year than it does a siderial year. This causes the solar day to be about four minutes longer than a siderial day.]

The sidereal day is stretching out quite predictably, and does not include leap seconds. So in sidereal time, the longest day of the year is December 31. I think this is also true of solar time in years without leap seconds. Note that most years do now have a leap second (35 of them since 1967).

[Erasmus]

I’m going to make love.

I know this good sex therapist who may be able to help.

≤}B^)

[Verginius Rufus]

Interesting. Actually, according to the Wikipedia article "sidereal time," the sidereal day is measured against the vernal equinox, which of course is constantly moving because of the precession of the equinoxes. They call the earth's rotation relative to the "fixed" stars a "stellar day" (.008 seconds longer than a sidereal day).

The precession of the equinoxes is the reason why the "first point of Aries" is now in Pisces, and why astrological signs are one constellation off from where the sun actually is in a given part of the year. It was first discovered by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus--which is why you'll never hear Obama talk about it (can't credit Muslim scientists for the discovery).

[Guardian Sebastian]

It’s going to be the longest birthday of my life - lol.

[mtg]

I’m going to use that extra second to count how many rights and freedoms we still have in this country.

[GATOR NAVY]

We had to account for these leap seconds in the Navigation Timepiece Rate Book where we kept track of the ship’s chronometers.