As we fast approach the next “Leap Year” on 29th February 2016, which as everyone knows, “keeps our modern day Gregorian Calendar in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun”, let us first celebrate today as this marks the 26th time a “Leap Second” will be added to the calendar. 

When is a minute not a minute? At 23:59 Greenwich Mean Time TODAY (9:59am AEST Wednesday 1/7), when the world will experience a minute that will last 61 seconds.

 As Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator explains;

“In the second half of the 20th century, we started tracking time via atomic clocks, which happen to be more accurate and precise than the rotating Earth itself — our technology was better at keeping time than our planet was. This crossover allowed us to notice that Earth’s rotation rate is, in fact, slowing down.

The primary culprit here is the Moon, whose tidal forces on Earth create friction between the sloshing oceans and our north-south coastlines. In response, the Moon’s orbit is spiralling away from Earth at a rate of about 5-inches (13cm) per year.

Such is the layout of this cosmic ballet — choreographed by the forces of gravity.”

However, as Kathleen Dyett from ABC News states, is the extra second really worth it?

“There have been 25 occasions since 1971 when the leap second was added in an effort to simplify Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the official moniker for GMT.

The leap second is not something that needs to be added to that old clock on your mantelpiece, but instead its importance is for super-duper timepieces, especially those using the frequency of atoms as their tick-tock mechanism. 

At the top of the atomic-clock range are "optical lattices" using strontium atoms, the latest example of which, unveiled in April, is accurate to 15 billion years - longer than the Universe has existed. 

But over the last 15 years, a debate has intensified about whether the change should be made, given the hassle…”

While the experts debate whether the “Leap Second” is worth it, let us celebrate the additional second we have been granted today.  

Will Rogers the American Actor says, “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save”. 

Will you “Leap Second” wisely? Time will tell!