Google says that “On Earth, a sidereal day is almost exactly 23 hours and 56 minutes.” Meaning that every year we lose 4×365:60≈24h so one day of time. And leap year is supposed to compensate for that but it only happens every 4 years not every year. Can someone explain me why is that so?
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The sidereal day is not related to the length of the year. When measuring the length of the year we are really only concerned about solar days; the Earth takes 365.25(ish) solar days to complete an orbit, so every four years the .25(ish) adds up to one extra day we need to insert.
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