Earth had its shortest day ever this summer.

Why?

Because of the wobble of its axis, which means it made one rotation in a fraction of a second in less than 24 hours.

Thus, June 29 was 1.59 milliseconds shorter than all other days.

In recent decades, the Earth is more likely to slow down, giving slightly longer days.

But in recent years, this trend has reversed and the days are getting shorter and shorter.

If the Earth continues to accelerate, this may lead to the first request to subtract one second from the atomic clock.

It's not uncommon for our planet to wobble, reports

The rotation we experience as night and day does not always occur exactly in line with its axis, the line between the north and south poles.

This is because it is not a precise sphere, reports

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Professor Leonid Zotov believes that the Earth rotates faster because of a periodic motion called the Chandler oscillation.

The oscillations were first noticed in the late 1880s, when astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler observed that the poles oscillate over a period of 14 months.

This fluctuation began to slow in the early 2000s, reaching historic lows as of 2017, only to disappear between 2017 and 2020