What is a Leap Second?

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The 'leap year' is probably no stranger to most of us; but have you heard of the 'leap second'? Similar to an extra day added to the calendar every leap year, an extra second is added to our atomic clocks at the stroke of midnight usually on the last day in June or December at select intervals – the leap second. A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) . Guess when the next leap second insertion is supposed to occur? It's 23h59m59s on 31st December (UTC) this year – depending on where you are, you might have to count down one more second before ushering in a brand new 2017!

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