“Where did the time go?”

As we enter a new year it’s not uncommon for many to ask, “Where did the time go?”. That’s a phrase we often hear when people are so engaged in the things they’re doing they fail to notice the “time” that passed. On a universal scale that time is indeed going somewhere.

The 28 fastest days on record (since 1960) all occurred in 2020, with Earth completing its revolutions around its axis milliseconds quicker than average. Data shows our former 24-hour daily rotation is decreasing incrementally, making the day marginally shorter. For example, last Sunday lasted only 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59.9998927 seconds, according to TimeAndDate.com.

Earth’s axial tilt is about 23.4°. It oscillates between 22.1° and 24.5° on a 41000-year cycle and is currently decreasing.

Even though the planet’s rotation rate may speed up or slow down slightly from day to day, due to natural terrestrial and celestial alterations, astronomical calendar trends indicate that recent years have become shorter overall. An inconvenient fact for international timekeepers, who use ultra-accurate atomic clocks to meter out the…