2024-02-29T05:47:36+00:00
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/ At the end of Saturday, February 29, the Gregorian calendar and the following months return to their normal conditions during the year 2024, as this “extra” day comes only once every four years.
Researchers reveal that the abandonment of leap years for about 750 years means that the Gregorian calendar will eventually stop matching the seasons and become the coldest time of the year.
The Gregorian calendar year usually consists of 365 days, but one day is added to it every 4 years, which makes that year a leap year. The last leap year was 2020, and the next will be in 2028.
This day is added in the month of February, which is February 29, which comes only once every 4 years, in order to synchronize the Gregorian calendar with the astronomical year, which means that the number of days in the Gregorian year becomes 366 days, unlike the usual 365 days in which the year is, because this is the approximate time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun.
However, the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, to be precise, is close to 365.25 days.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the Gregorian calendar seasons remain in sync with the solar seasons, an extra day is added to the Gregorian calendar every 4 years, according to the British newspaper, The Independent.
“If we hadn’t kept leap years for about 750 years, the Gregorian calendar would eventually stop matching the seasons and the coldest time of year would be in, say, June,” says Daniel Brown, associate professor at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology.
While it is widely recognized that a leap year occurs every four years, there are exceptions to this rule.
Although the leap year was created as a solution to the problem of time compatibility between the Gregorian calendar and the Earth’s astronomical cycle around the sun, it is not an ideal solution, given that the principle on which this year is based is based on adding a full 24 hours every 4 years, which means that the calendar year exceeds the solar year by 11 minutes and 14 seconds.
The accumulation of this time period results in a new additional day after 128 calendar years in addition to February 29, and for this reason the leap year is cancelled once every 400 years, which helps reduce the time difference by half a minute in favour of the calendar year, which means that the solar year will be behind the calendar year by a full day after 3300 years.