what is a leap year?

Answer 1

a leap year is a year that contains 366 days instead of just 365, the extra day is feb 29

Answer 2

A year in the Gregorian calendar having 366 days, with the extra day, February 29, intercalated to compensate for the quarter-day difference between an ordinary year and the astronomical year.
An intercalary year in a calendar.


February 29, 2008
is the next leap year, with 29 days in February. February 2008 has five Fridays - it starts and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with same day of week for each date repeat every 28 years which means that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980 and next time will be in 2036.

What is a leap year?
A leap year is a year with one extra day inserted into February, the leap year is 366 days with 29 days in February as opposed to the normal 28 days. (There are a few past exceptions to this)

Which years are leap years?
In the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar used by most modern countries, the following rules decides which years are leap years:

Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year.
But every year divisible by 100 is NOT a leap year
Unless the year is also divisible by 400, then it is still a leap year

Answer 3

Five thousand years ago the Egyptians divided the year into twelve months and each month is divided into a certain number of days. Three years out of every four, a year has 365 days in it. In the fourth year, there are 366 days. This is a leap year. Every leap year an extra day is added to the month of February. Normally, February has 28 days in it, but in a leap year it has 29 days.

The purpose of this is to make up the difference between the calendar year and the solar year. It is convenient for us in daily life to go by a calendar year of 365 days. The solar year, which measures time by the movement of the Earth round the Sun, is actually 365 days and about six hours long.

In four years, these six hours a year make an extra day, so we have a year with an extra day in it, a leap year.

Calendars sometimes show the positions of planets and stars and the phases of the moon.

Answer 4

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day, week or month in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, February would have 29 days instead of just 28. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year which is not a leap year is called a common year.

A year in the Gregorian calendar having 366 days, with the extra day, February 29, intercalated to compensate for the quarter-day difference between an ordinary year and the astronomical year.
An intercalary year in a calendar.

Answer 5

since the time taken by the earth to take a round around the sun exceeds 365 days by 6 hours, therefore there is a need of counterbalancing it .
since 6*4=24=hours in one day, therefore, there is 1 extra day [in feb.] after every 4 years
thus every year divisible by 4 is a leap year
but earth takes a 7 seconds less than 24 hours to revolute on it's axis. So,every century not divisible by 400 is not a leap year

Answer 6

Leap year is when there is an extra day giving us 366 days instead of the usual 365. This happens every four years. February will have 29 days instead of 28. 2008 will be the next one.

Answer 7

Leap year happens because there are not exactly 24 hours in a day, there's a tiny bit more. But for some reason, it was easier for "them" to keep it that way anyway. So we lose about 24 hours in 4 years. So they add a day to the shortest month to make up for it.

Answer 8

Our calendar year is a bit short (about a quarter of a day) of a complete solar orbit, so every four years, we add a day to make up the difference. In a couple of decades, they'll have to do an extra leap day to bring it back into accord.

Answer 9

it is a year that is every 4 years

every year february has 28 days, but on leap years february has 29. so normal years have 365 days but leap years have 366

the next leap year is 2008

Answer 10

When the calendar shows a February 29th, it is a Leap Year.