A man holds a red NO sign and an hourglass. Earth’s spin is speeding up – and it’s about to mess with time itself. Days to get shorter in July and August as the planet whirls into overdrive.
Credit: Andrii Yalanskyi, Shutterstock.
If you’re living in Spain, you might be soaking up the long summer evenings – but this year, they’ll be a fraction shorter than usual. Scientists have confirmed that Earth’s rotation is set to speed up on three specific days in July and August, making them measurably shorter by just over a millisecond.
It won’t throw off your daily routine or change the sunset time in Alicante, but it’s a reminder that even the rhythm of time isn’t set in stone. From the Moon’s shifting pull to the effects of climate change. Here’s what’s happening – and why it matters, no matter where in Spain you call home.
Earth is set to spin faster this summer, making July 9, July 22, and August 5 slightly shorter than usual. Discover why it’s happening and what it means.
Earth’s spin is speeding up – and scientists say three days this summer will be measurably shorter. On July 9, July 22, and August 5, 2025, the Moon’s gravitational pull will accelerate Earth’s rotation, making each day slightly shorter. Here’s what’s causing the change – and why it matters.
Hold onto your watches – Earth is about to spin like it’s had too many espressos.
Our planet is expected to rotate faster than usual on three upcoming dates – July 9, July 22, and August 5 – making the days fractionally shorter than the usual 24-hour slog.
According to scientists, the Earth’s rotation will shave off between 1.3 and 1.51 milliseconds on those days – all thanks to the Moon flexing its gravitational muscles.
The Moon’s got us in a spin
Picture Earth like a lazy office chair on wheels. Give it a push from the right angle, and it spins faster. That’s exactly what the Moon is about to do. When it drifts closer to the poles rather than the equator, its gravitational pull gives Earth an extra nudge – speeding up our daily rotation. On July 9, July 22 and August 5, the Moon’s position will do just that, shortening each day ever so slightly.
Earth’s chaotic spin history
Think a day is always 24 hours? Think again. Earth’s rotation has been anything but consistent – and it’s not just down to cosmic mood swings. Around a billion years ago, our planet was spinning like a washing machine on full whack, squeezing a full day into just 19 hours. Why? The Moon was closer, yanking us around with a much stronger gravitational pull.
But as the Moon slowly backs away – at about 3.8 centimetres a year, like a fed-up dance partner – Earth’s spin has been calming down, stretching days longer. That was the long-term pattern… until 2020 crashed the party.
That year, scientists noticed Earth was suddenly picking up the pace – rotating faster than it had since atomic clocks began keeping score in the 1970s. Then came July 5, 2024, when we logged the shortest day ever: 1.66 milliseconds shorter than the usual 24 hours, according to TimeandDate.com.
Climate change is dragging time down too
It’s not just the Moon playing puppet master with Earth’s spin – humans are putting their thumb on the dial, too. According to NASA, climate change is subtly reshaping how fast our planet turns, thanks to a quiet but powerful shift: water redistribution.
As glaciers melt and groundwater gets pumped, the planet’s mass is being rearranged – imagine shifting weight from the centre of a spinning plate to the edges. Between 2000 and 2018, this watery reshuffle has increased the length of our days by about 1.33 milliseconds per century.
Natural disasters can also give the Earth a sudden jolt. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan, for example, was so forceful it nudged Earth’s mass inward and shaved off 1.8 microseconds from the day. That’s a change smaller than a blink – but monumental when you’re talking about planetary mechanics.
Even the changing of the seasons has its say. During the northern summer, trees grow leaves, lifting tonnes of biomass higher above the Earth’s surface. That tiny vertical shift in weight moves mass away from the spin axis – which, as Professor Richard Holme of the University of Liverpool explains, slows the planet down, just like a spinning gymnast sticking their arms out.
In short, Earth’s rotation is a delicate balancing act – and we’re all part of the wobble.
Will your clock go haywire? Not unless you’re in Interstellar
Before you start blaming Earth’s spin for being late to work, take a deep breath – your smartwatch isn’t going to melt down. These upcoming changes, though dramatic in scientific terms, are microscopic in human terms. We’re talking 1.5 milliseconds shaved off your day. That’s 1.5 thousandths of a second – less time than it takes to think about hitting snooze.
To actually disrupt global timekeeping, Earth would need to go rogue by 900 milliseconds or more in a single day – and so far, that’s still sci-fi territory. Think Interstellar, not InterCity trains.
Still, scientists are keeping a very close eye on our planet’s punctuality. There’s even a real-life time task force called the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) – a group of ultra-precise boffins who make sure the world’s clocks stay in lockstep with Earth’s spin. When we start drifting too far out of sync, they throw in what’s called a “leap second” – a tiny correction to Universal Time (UTC), a sort of horological pit stop for Planet Earth.
These adjustments are rare but essential. Without them, our time zones would slowly slip out of alignment with the actual position of the Sun. Imagine Christmas dinner at 3 AM in 200 years – not ideal.
So no, you won’t feel the change. You won’t see clocks ticking backwards or your microwave launching into space. But make no mistake — Earth’s rotation is on the move, and even the tiniest tremor in time tells us something bigger about our planet, our impact, and our place in the universe.
Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from all this: time really does fly – especially when the Earth decides to pick up the pace.
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