If you’re counting down to something exciting today, there’s a twist—July 22, 2025, is ever so slightly shorter than usual. While the difference won’t show up on your wristwatch, it’s significant enough to make scientific headlines.
According to the BBC, Earth completed its rotation today just a bit quicker than the standard 24 hours—1.34 milliseconds faster, to be exact. It’s a barely perceptible sliver of time, but one that matters greatly to scientists monitoring the planet’s rotation with ultra-precise atomic clocks.
This marks one of the fastest rotations Earth has ever completed, highlighting the dynamic and often unpredictable nature of our planet. Factors like lunar gravity, seismic activity, tides, and Earth’s shape can all subtly alter the length of a day.
The Moon, for example, has been gradually slowing Earth’s rotation over millions of years through a process called tidal braking. Its gravitational pull distorts the shape of our planet, creating bulges that act as a kind of cosmic drag.
But in recent years, Earth has been speeding up instead.
Since 2020, scientists have observed a series of record-breaking fast days. The shortest ever recorded occurred on July 5, 2024, when the planet completed its rotation 1.66 milliseconds ahead of schedule. This year, July 9 holds the top spot so far—1.36 milliseconds shorter than usual—with today’s rapid spin coming in close behind.
These subtle shifts are tracked by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), an organization that has been monitoring Earth’s spin with remarkable precision since 1972.
While measured in mere fractions of a second, these variations offer valuable insights into Earth’s interactions with the broader solar system. They remind us that our planet is far from static—it’s a living, shifting world deeply influenced by cosmic forces.