Redirected from Zulu time
Because the rotation of the Earth slows down, GMT lags behind atomic time, measured by atomic clocks. UTC is synchronized to the day and night of UT1; leap seconds are added (or removed) at the end of either June or December whenever necessary. The issuing of leap seconds is determined by the International Earth Rotation Service, based on their measurements of the Earth's rotation.
"UTC" is not a real abbreviation; it is a variant of Universal Time, abbreviated UT, and has a modifier C (for "coordinated") appended to it just like other variants of UT. It may be regarded as a compromise between the English abbreviation "CUT" and the French abbreviation "TUC".
Eastern Standard Time | UTC -5 |
---|---|
Central Standard Time | UTC -6 |
Mountain Standard Time | UTC -7 |
Pacific Standard Time | UTC -8 |
Alaska Standard Time | UTC -9 |
Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time | UTC -10 |
UTC presents problems for computer systems such as Unix which store time as the number of seconds from a reference time. Because of leap seconds, it is impossible to determine the representation of a future date, because the number of leap seconds included in that date is unknown.
UTC is the time system used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network Time Protocol is designed as a way of distributing UTC time over the Internet.
The UTC time zone is sometimes denoted by the letter 'Z' for military purposes. Since the NATO phonetic alphabet word for 'Z' is "Zulu", UTC is sometimes known as Zulu time.
Wikipedia's own server uses Coordinated Universal Time as the basis for its Wikipedia article updates list.
Search Encyclopedia
|
Featured Article
|