Eli5: If millions of years ago a day had only 22 hours, does science count those years differently, or is the standard always 24 hours? Aren’t we then missing a few years which we need to add up?

Question

Eli5: If millions of years ago a day had only 22 hours, does science count those years differently, or is the standard always 24 hours? Aren’t we then missing a few years which we need to add up?

In: 7

Answer 1

You can just measure things in “Current Earth Years”, it doesn’t matter if that length of time actually corresponds to anything.

We use years to talk about things that happen before the Earth existed and things that will happen when the Earth is long gone. It’s just a unit, you can do that, it doesn’t mean we’re missing anything.