Thanks to Diego over at d2r for this link. Apparently, the exact time depends on what standard you use and the International Telecommunications Union wants to try and standardise the standards before there's some sort of disaster.
The problem dates back to the 1970s when the official time keeping standard switched from one based on the rotation of the earth to an atomic standard. However, to keep astronomers happy, a number of leap seconds have been added to International Atomic Time (IAT) to account for the fact that the earth's rotation is slowing down. Coordicated Universal Time (UTC) is now 32 seconds behind IAT. The real problem arises from the fact that the GPS system uses a different standard, specifically, a version of UTC that was in effect in 1980. GPS time is 13 seconds ahead of UTC and 19 seconds behind IAT.
The astronomers don't want to have to upgrade their instruments if UTC is abolished in favour of IAT. Besides, if they stop adding leap seconds then IAT will eventually be so far out of step with actual time that it will be noticeable. In about 300 years at Noon IAT the sun will still be one hour away from being at its Zenith over the Greenwich meridian.
2:11:54 PM  Google It!
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