Eli5 what is the point in leap years ,like why do we have them?
In: 3
We have two things we’re dealing with here: years and days.
A day is the amount of time that it takes the Earth to rotate exactly one time. A year, on the other hand, is the amount of time that it takes the Earth to complete one revolution around the sun.
The issue is that a year takes ~356.25 days. That is, the Earth rotates 365.25 times for every full circle around the Sun. This presents issues. If we just set a year as 365 days, the seasons would shift a quarter of a day per year. Over time, January would end up in warm weather, because each year the “1st of January” would be happening later in the rotation around the Sun.
Leap days account for this by adding a day every 4 years. This keeps the 1st of January in roughly the same place in the circle around the Sun.
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