Longest Day

The 31st December will be the longest day of 2005, as it will have 86,401 seconds. The International Earth Rotation And Reference Systems Service (IERS) has announced a positive leap second, so the last second of the year will be 2005 December 31, 23h 59m 60s. The IERS monitors the rotation of the earth, and issues leap seconds to accommodate variations, when measured against the most accurate atomic clocks.