Earth is starting to spin faster — and scientists are considering doing something unprecedented

Illustration of the world surrounded by an alarm clock to represent time and Earth's rotation.

Earth is spinning so fast that global timekeepers are considering something that's never been done before: adding a negative leap second.

So far this year, July 9 and July 22 have been unusually short — by about 1.3 and 1.4 milliseconds, respectively. However, Aug. 5 is expected to be even shorter, losing roughly 1.5 milliseconds, according to timeanddate.com.