June will end with a rare 61-second minute

The world will on Tuesday, June 30, experience a minute that will last 61 seconds.

Reason? Something called the leap second. That’s when timekeepers adjust high-precision clocks so they’re in sync with earth’s rotation, which is affected by the gravitational tug of the sun and moon.

The leap second will be added to the world’s clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, formerly called Greenwich Mean Time).

Normally, the world’s timepieces go from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 – the start of the next day. With the leap second insertion, Coordinated Universal Time or Greenwich Mean Time will move from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 to 00:00:00.

Few of the planet’s 7.25 billion people are likely to be aware of the change because the leap second is not something that needs to be added to your wrist watch.

Instead, its importance is for super-duper timepieces, especially those using the frequency of atoms as their tick-tock mechanism.

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There will be a 61-second minute on June 30