HOUSTON – Leap year falls on a Saturday this year, but it’s not an extra Saturday.
Here’s the history and math behind why there will be a February 29 this is year.
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Centuries ago, “days were added to various months to bring the total number up to 365. Because the seasons didn’t exactly fit the 365-day year, the calendar ended about one-quarter day early, resulting in the calendar becoming a full day off every fourth year,” according to Farmers Almanac.
If leap year was ignored, months would eventually not line-up with seasons. Since the Earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds exactly to revolve around the sun, philosophers concluded that adding one extra day every four years would allow months and seasons to accurately correlate.
Experts at Accuweather, an online source for forecast, explain that nearly 6 hours a year would be lost if the leap year was ignored, and after 100 years, the calendar would be off by 25 days.
Adding a full day every fourth year gets us closer to one year representing one trip around the sun. According to Farmer’s Almanac, “any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year, which made the average length of the calendar 365.25 days.”
Here’s the math:
365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds converted into minutes and multiplied by four equals 2,103,795 minutes.
365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds rounded, in decimal form equals 365.25 days.
This is how long it takes for the Earth to rotate around the sun four times.
365 days flat, converted into minutes and multiplied by four equals 2,102,400 minutes.
That is 1,395 minutes or 23 hours and 15 minutes less than the amount of time the Earth takes to rotate around the sun four times.
Because of the leap year, four years equals 1,461 days which, when divided by four, makes one year average out to 365.25 days.