Leap Year 2024 Explained: Who Decided February 29 Is Leap Day?

Leap Year 2024 Explained: If you've already flipped the calendar to take a look at February, you might have noticed a day that doesn't typically appear¡ªFeb. 29. This occurrence is a result of declaring a leap year almost every four years, where an extra day is added to February. This practice is essential to maintain the alignment of our calendar with the solar year and prevent any disruption to our sense of time.

The current year, 2024, is a leap year. Here's what to know about leap day, when it falls and why it's a part of our February calendar.

What Is a Leap Year?

As per NASA, it takes approximately 365.25 days for Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun, constituting a solar year. In our standard calendar, we round the days in a year to 365. To account for the fractional day left over, we incorporate an additional day to our calendar roughly every four years, creating what is known as a leap year.

A leap year is a year with one extra day compared to a regular year, which has 365 days. This extra day is typically added to February, making it 29 days instead of 28.

Who first started them?

Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, a system originally instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The concept of leap years traces back even further to Julius Caesar, who, in 46 BC, collaborated with his astronomer to establish the 365-day Julian calendar.

What is the reason for the leap year?

According to the space agency, a year is defined as the time it takes for a planet to complete one orbit around its star, while a day is the duration of a planet's rotation on its axis. Earth takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours to orbit the Sun, and it completes one rotation on its axis in about 24 hours, constituting a day. As our calendar usually rounds down the days in a year to 365, the leftover fraction of a day persists. To account for this, we add an extra day to the calendar approximately every four years, ensuring that we include the additional time in our count.

Leap Year 2024 Explained: Who Decided February 29 Is Leap Day? | Time and date

What are the key points about leap years?

• Rule of thumb: Generally, any year that is evenly divisible by 4 is a leap year. However, there are some exceptions:
• Years divisible by 100 but not 400 are NOT leap years (e.g., 1900).
• Years divisible by 400 ARE leap years (e.g., 2000).

• Leap day: The extra day in a leap year is commonly called "leap day" and falls on February 29th.
• Frequency: Leap years occur about once every four years on average, but not exactly.
• Impact: Leap years help keep our calendar seasons aligned with the astronomical year, ensuring that equinoxes and solstices fall on the same dates year after year.

Why is Leap Day in February?

The decision to designate February as the month to add a leap day can be traced back to the calendar reforms implemented by Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. Drawing inspiration from the Egyptian solar calendar, Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which incorporated a leap year to synchronise the calendar year with the solar year. Even with the evolution of the Julian calendar into the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the tradition of inserting a leap day into February persisted.

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