A recent power outage in the Boulder area of Colorado has caused the atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to lose accuracy, resulting in U.S. official time being off by 4.8 microseconds, according to NIST officials. The blackout has disrupted the Internet Time Service servers, with NIST warning that several may be inaccurate due to the lack of an accurate time reference. Despite these challenges, the NTP server continues to operate using backup power sources, although concerns about time distribution risks remain.