Time is speeding up.

Question

NASA recently stated that our days have been getting shorter, which could be linked to the idea that time is technically “speeding up.” This means the Earth is rotating slightly faster than it used to, and as a result, each day is just a bit shorter than 24 hours. Even though the difference is only a few milliseconds, it’s still a real and measurable change. Over time, these subtle shifts could begin to affect how we track time globally. This shows that time isn’t as fixed as we thought; it’s affected by the planet’s motion. It’s kind of mind-blowing to think that we’re living through a period where time might be changing.

Answer 1

Interestingly, the opposite seems to be true. This NASA article states that days on Earth are growing slightly longer due to rotational disturbances caused by the redistribution of melting glacial ice. 

"If emissions continue to rise, lengthening of day from climate change could reach as high as 2.62 milliseconds per century, overtaking the effect of the Moon’s pull on tides, which has been increasing Earth’s length of day by 2.4 milliseconds per century, on average."

This was substantiated by an NPR article (citing this PNAS report) that stated: 
"The change is tiny, measured in milliseconds, which is one-thousandth of a second," with the caveat that the change is meaningful for finely tuned tech that does things like processing of financial transactions, GPS navigation, and the power grid. 

Answer 2

This claim that time is speeding up is exaggerated and is false. Although it may look like time is speeding up, there have been numerous pieces of evidence that back up the fact that time is indeed not speeding up.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-spinning-time-second-removed-world-clocks/: CBS News supports that time is not speeding up, instead, they state how the Earth is just moving on its axis faster. They state how time can never speed up, as the rate of time passing is a fundamental constant. With that being said, the rate at which Earth is rotating on it axis determines how long or short the day feels because of the time the sun is up and down.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/09/why-is-the-earth-spinning-faster-is-time-speeding-up-australias-experts-give-us-their-second-opinion#:~:text=Deleting%20a%20leap%20second%20could,are%20considering%20skipping%20a%20second.: The Guardian also states how this feeling of time speeding up is actually the opposite of what what could be happening. They claim the instead of time skipping a second they may have to go back a second to stay consistent with the rate at which the Earth is rotating.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/science/earth-spinning-faster-shorter-days#:~:text=Since%201972%2C%20a%20total%20of,have%20been%20added%20since%202016.: Sources within CNN also confirm the idea that time itself is not speeding up and is not the reason for shorter days, but instead it is just the rate of the Earth rotating on its axis. The article states, "the rotation speed lost by the atmosphere is picked up by the planet itself." This quote relates to he fact that time is not speeding up, and its actually the planet itself, making uo for any lost time do to the atmosphere.

Answer 3

The claim that time is speeding up is false. According to https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/science/earth-spinning-faster-shorter-days the days are getting shorter, but they are saying its not because of time but saying that "each rotation is slightly irregular due to a variety of factors, such as the gravitational pull of the moon, seasonal changes in the atmosphere and the influence of Earth’s liquid core." meaning that the time is not actually speeding up but instead saying "the laws of physics dictate that the overall angular momentum of Earth and its atmosphere must remain constant, so the rotation speed lost by the atmosphere is picked up by the planet itself." another source I looked into was https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-spinning-time-second-removed-world-clocks/ was saying that instead of time moving faster its actually the slowing down. the text says "The slowing is mostly caused by the effect of tides, which are caused by the pull of the moon, McCarthy said." They also stated that time cannot speed up, just like the CNN reporter said. Basically what this article is trying to say is that the reason time feels like its speeding up is because the way the earth is rotating on an axis, and that dictates how long the sun is up or down for. The final one I looked at was https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/09/why-is-the-earth-spinning-faster-is-time-speeding-up-australias-experts-give-us-their-second-opinion, this article said very similar things to the first 2 articles specifically honing in on the axis and rotation relative to the sun, the article says. "scientists expect the planet’s rotation to quicken relative to the sun, truncating the days by a millisecond or more." all of the sources came to the same conclusion that time is not actually speeding up but instead the rotational axis the planet is on was going faster.