New Atomic Clock Makes US Standard Time Thrice As Accurate

America's way of keeping time just became three times more precise.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has unveiled an atomic clock called NIST F-2 that is the new U.S. civilian time standard, The Associated Press reported.

Replacing the NIST F-1, which also used cesium atoms to measure seconds, the new clock won't necessarily affect average American citizens, but its pinpoint accuracy is important in a world that is progressing rapidly in technology.

"Nothing here is going to change the way we live tomorrow, in terms of having a three-times-more-accurate clock," physicist Steven Jefferts, lead designer of the new clock, told the AP. "But these technologies keep getting adopted for use in our society, so we have to keep inventing things to make them work better."

Cesium atoms in both clocks measured "the frequency of a particular transition in the cesium atom--which is more than 9.1 billion vibrations per second" to define each second, the AP reported.

The newly exact atomic clock, which launched Thursday at the institute's Boulder center, is vital for high-tech systems, officials said.

"Modern telecommunication networks require synchronization to about a millionth of a second per day," Tom O'Brian, chief of NIST's time and frequency division, told CNN. "Power grids also ... (and) GPS systems require about 1 billionth of a second per day.

"All of these technologies, and many more that we use every day, rely on exquisite timing and synchronization that is only possible with atomic clocks."

The NIST F-1 shouldn't lose more than a trillionth of a second per day, meaning it is expected not to gain or lose a second in around 300 million years.