2021 will be shorter because Earth is spinning faster, scientists say NASA NASA camera on Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite returns photo of entire sunlit side of Earth from 1 million miles away By: Scripps National and last updated 2021-01-12 16:48:28-05 Humans were not the only ones who wanted 2020 to be over faster. The Earth spun faster than normal last year, according to scientists. Last year, the Earth broke the previous record for shortest astronomical day, set in 2005. In fact, the Earth broke the record 28 times in 2020. And it's still spinning faster. While Earth is, on average, pretty reliable and takes 86,400 seconds to rotate around its axis, itâs not perfect.