If a human egg lifespan is 24 hours, then how come women can get pregnant any time of the month?
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They can’t. The period in which a woman can conceive is just a few days of their cycle. That said the cycle obviously doesn’t match up with the calendar and there are some variations possible which then shifts the fertile period around even more.
Also sperm can also survive up to a few days, which means that the period in which sex can result in conception is a bit longer.
Because the exact timing of ovulation is unpredictable, and because sperm can survive for a little bit inside the uterus. It’s not that women can get pregnant at any time – they’re only fertile for, on average, a day or so out of the month – but *which* day that is varies, and they can become pregnant from sex for several days beforehand.
On average, ovulation (the release of an egg) occurs between 8 and 20 days after a woman’s last period. That means they can reasonably become pregnant from sex between ~4 and 21 days after their period, or about 17 days out of a ~28 day average cycle. But because eggs can occasionally be released outside of that range, it’s possible for a woman to become pregnant at other times, too.
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