(Newser)
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Good news for people who didn't get enough sleep this week. Tonight you'll have an extra second to snooze. That's because a "leap second" will be added to the ultra-precise atomic clocks kept by international timekeepers. The Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is tasked with making sure atomic time matches up with planetary time, and every few years, a leap second is needed to keep things in sync, explains the Independent.
"We want to have both times close together and it's not possible to adjust the Earth's rotation," says one official. So tonight atomic clocks will display 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 60 seconds before striking midnight universal time. For the record, that's about 8pm EDT, notes the Associated Press.
