Happy Leap Year Day!! This year, February has 29 days, making it a leap year. But why??
Normally, the month of February has 28 days. Every four years, however, we add an extra day to the calendar, which is today. To better understand this answer, we need some background information about our calendar.
The calendar we use is actually pretty ancient. It was designed to document the Earth's annual trip around the sun through the changing seasons. Over the course of approximately 365 days, the Earth makes one full trip around the sun. The calendar we use today reflects that and is based on observations made by scientists going back to the 11th century in Persia.
Ancient astronomers quickly realized that the Earth doesn't take exactly 365 days to make a full trip around the sun. If one wanted to be more precise, there's an extra six hours to make it official. But what do you do with six hours over a long period of time? Scientists applied math to this problem and came up with the leap year. This is why, every four years, when twenty-fours hours have accumulated, we add an extra day in the month of February.
Normally, the month of February has 28 days. Every four years, however, we add an extra day to the calendar, which is today. To better understand this answer, we need some background information about our calendar.
The calendar we use is actually pretty ancient. It was designed to document the Earth's annual trip around the sun through the changing seasons. Over the course of approximately 365 days, the Earth makes one full trip around the sun. The calendar we use today reflects that and is based on observations made by scientists going back to the 11th century in Persia.
Ancient astronomers quickly realized that the Earth doesn't take exactly 365 days to make a full trip around the sun. If one wanted to be more precise, there's an extra six hours to make it official. But what do you do with six hours over a long period of time? Scientists applied math to this problem and came up with the leap year. This is why, every four years, when twenty-fours hours have accumulated, we add an extra day in the month of February.
