If Earth makes one complete rotation on its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes, how does day and night not being flipped on our clocks after six months? (6monthx30dayx4min/60=12hour)

Question

And why leap year happens once per 4 years only to address this?

In: 1081

Answer 1

Because the earth circles around the sun once a year. That removes one sun rise every year. Every year the earth rotates 366 times relative to the universe, but we only see 365 sun rises.

In other words, because the earth circles the sun, the sun rise actually happens roughly 4 minutes past each complete rotation every day.