California, July 23 -- As the Earth is spinning faster this summer, the days have become marginally shorter, attracting the attention of scientists and timekeepers.

July 10 was the shortest day of the year so far, lasting 1.36 milliseconds less than 24 hours, according to data from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the US Naval Observatory, compiled by timeanddate.com.

More exceptionally, short days are coming on July 22 and August five, currently predicted to be 1.34 and 1.25 milliseconds shorter than 24 hours, respectively, reported CNN.

The length of a day is the time it takes for the planet to complete one full rotation on its axis -24 hours or 86,400 seconds on average. But in reality, each rotation...