What is a Leap Year?
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A calendar year is made of three hundred and sixty five days -- a number that refuses tobe divide nicely, which is why we end up with uneven months of either 30 or 31 days. Exceptfor February -- the runt of the litter -- which only gets 28... except when it gets 29 andthen the year is 366 days long.Why does that happen? What kind of crazy universe do we live in where some years are longerthan others?To answer this we need to know: just what is a year?Way oversimplifying it: a year is the time it takes Earth to make one trip around thesun. This happens to line up with the cycle of the seasons.Now, drawing a little diagram like this showing the Earth jauntily going around the sun iseasy to do, but accurately tracking a year is tricky when you're on Earth becau...
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A calendar year is made of three hundred and sixty five days -- a number that refuses tobe divide nicely, which is why we end up with uneven months of either 30 or 31 days. Exceptfor February -- the runt of the litter -- which only gets 28... except when it gets 29 andthen the year is 366 days long.Why does that happen? What kind of crazy universe do we live in where some years are longerthan others?To answer this we need to know: just what is a year?Way oversimplifying it: a year is the time it takes Earth to make one trip around thesun. This happens to line up with the cycle of the seasons.Now, drawing a little diagram like this showing the Earth jauntily going around the sun iseasy to do, but accurately tracking a year is tricky when you're on Earth becau...
