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

I never thought about it, but if the Earth didn’t rotate, then 6 months after it was high noon, it would be midnight as we revolve around the sun (i.e. for a distinct location on the planet, if the sun was directly overhead, then 6 months later the sun would be on the exact opposite side of the planet). But, since the Earth rotates, as your calculations show, that would-be-midnight is flipped right back to being high noon, it just happened slowly over the course of six months. Neat!