Eli5:why we use the solar calendar instead of the lunar calendar?
In: Planetary Science
Because the year is divided by seasons, with a full year being a full cycle of seasons, and seasons depend on the sun not the moon.
Back in the day (and in some countries even today, alongside the Gregorian one) many (if not most) calendars were lunar, because there’s a very obvious and regular pattern to the moon. So it didn’t require much effort to make one. But it also drifts out of alignment with the seasons, since a lunar cycle is 29.5 days, so it’s out by about a week compared to a solar year over all 12 months. So after a generation you’re half a year off.
That’s much worse than even the most rudimentary solar calendar, which is only a quarter day per year off.
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