The Paris Observatory, one of the largest astronomical centres in the world, has announced that 2015 will be one second longer. It has made an announcement that one leap second would be added to June 30, 2015, and the clocks would read 11:59:60 p.m.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service said the leap second was added to account for the small difference in time between the rotation of the globe and the atomic clocks, reports Yahoo News. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which is based in France, is the organisation responsible for maintaining global time.

Nick Stamatakos, the chief of the U.S. Naval Observatory's Earth Orientation Parameters, which is used to describe irregularities of the rotation of the Earth, said the Earth was slowing down. He said the atomic clocks kept accurate time and the measurements were telling people the rotation was slowing down.

Stamatakos explained the addition of an extra second to the UTC, which stands for Co-ordinated Universal Time, was done to ensure the rate of the UTC was in coordination with the atomic time. He continued that June 30 will have 86,401 seconds, instead of what each day usually has which is 86,400 seconds. He said the length of the day for everyone on Earth would be extended by a second.

In 1972, the first leap second was added. The addition of the leap second to June 30, 2015 will be the 26th time that a second had been added to the clocks. The addition of a leap second this year means the rotation of the Earth had slowed down by a total of 26 seconds in comparison to the measurement of the atomic clocks. Between 1972 and 1979, a minimum of one second was added every year. Throughout the 80s, leap seconds were added six times, but since 1999, only four leap seconds were added.

According to Stamatakos, the addition of leap seconds was really down to physics. He said currently the Earth wasn't as slow like it was in the 70s. He said the rotation of the Earth had sped up a bit when compared to the 70s, but it was still going slower when compared to the atomic time.

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