leap_seconds¶

giant.utilities.spice_interface.leap_seconds(date)[source]¶

This function returns the number of leap seconds between observation_date and January 1, 12:00:00.000 (TDB).

For dates before the epoch, leap seconds are returned as negative integers. For dates after the epoch leap seconds are returned as positive integers.

Parameters:: date (datetime) – a python datetime object
Returns:: The number of leap seconds between the input observation_date and the epoch
Return type:: int