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

A year isn’t a set number of days, its the number of times the earth rotates around the sun. Even todays years aren’t 365 days exactly, that’s why we have leap years to fix the slight difference between the days and the years.

Also if you’re counting years that far back no one is looking at the days because no one was there to write down the days and how long they were.