It seems like everything with our calendar is based around 24hr days and the number of 24hr days to revolve around the sun. But a 24hr day can be broken down to 1,440 minutes and in turn 86,400 seconds. How did we (humans) calibrate the second so that exactly 86,400 would be 1 rotation of the earth to the point where we never need something like a “leap second” like we have with leap years?
In: Planetary Science
A leap year isn’t a whole year. It’s a day. Every four years.
Why do we have that day?
Because the rotation of the Earth isn’t 24 hours. It’s actually off from that by a few seconds. Add up a few seconds by 365, and you get a little less than .25 days. Do that 4 times, and you have almost a day left over, which is why we do leap days/years. Since it’s not quite .25 days, we also have to skip every 25th leap year to accomodate.
So you see, leap years are actually leap days that are made up of leap seconds.
Latest Answers