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the_brain the_brain
 
M$1 July 05, 2009 07:30 PM

If there is an extra day added on a leap year, does that mean there are 366 days?

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aogwarrior aogwarrior
 
 July 06, 2009 06:19 AM
Yes, a leap year has 366 days. This is because the orbits the sun at a rate of 365 days and 6hrs (not just 365 days), but obviously you can't have a 6hr "day" pegged on to the end of each year, and adding it on to time keeping would of course be tremendously annoying. So what they do is just add the extra hours on every 4 years (each "leap" year), and since 4*6 so conveniently equals 24, it works out perfectly to give us a whole extra day. As stated by Arjo, this extra day is thrown into February (since it has a distinct shortage of days).
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Tags: leap, sidereal, orbit, year

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mritty mritty
 
July 06, 2009 12:19 PM
Well. Not quite "perfectly". Because it's not really 365.25 days. It's just slightly less than that. That's why years divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400 (even though they are divisible by 4) are not leap years. 2000 was a leap year, but 1900, 1800, and 1700 weren't. Nor will 2100, 2200, or 2300 be.

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aogwarrior aogwarrior
 
July 07, 2009 03:26 AM
You are correct, mritty, my apologies. I was estimating from what I had remembered learning years back (whenever I did astronomy). Turns out its roughly 365.2422 days (the .2422 would be about 5.8hrs).

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kerryk kerryk
 
July 05, 2009 07:43 PM
Yes, leap years have 366 days.

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arjo arjo
 
July 05, 2009 07:44 PM
Yes you are correct about that . A leap year has 366 days;

''A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing one or more extra days .. in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, February in a leap year has 29 days instead of the usual 28 so the year lasts 366 days instead of the usual 365.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year

"Leap Year was created to bring the Gregorian Calendar in line with the earth’s orbit around the sun. Most commonly, a Leap Year occurs every four years. In a Gregorian Leap Year, the month of February has 29 days as opposed to its usual 28 days."

http://www.mahalo.com/leap-year
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year


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jfesmire jfesmire
 
July 05, 2009 08:18 PM
Yes, in a leap year, there are 366 days.

A leap year takes place every year that is divisible by 4. However, if the year ends in 00, then the year has to be divisible by 400 to be a leap year.

Then, every once in awhile, such as last year, we add one second to the year to make it all come out right.

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stevennagl... stevennagl...
 
July 06, 2009 01:22 AM
yes they have 366 days
Source(s):
i looked at a calender


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