Question

Short answer type question:
How does leap year occur?

Answer 1

Hint: A leap year is a calendar year that includes an extra day (or in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) inserted to keep the calendar year aligned with the astronomical year or seasonal year. A leap year is also known as an intercalary year.

Complete Answer:
Leap years are years in which February is added to the end of the shortest month, an additional, or intercalary, day. The leap day, February 29, is generally referred to as the leap day. Instead of the normal 365 days, leap years have 366 days and occur about every four years.

Leap days keep our new Gregorian calendar in sync with the movements of the Earth around the Sun. It takes Earth around 365.242189 days to travel around the Sun once or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds. This is called the tropical year, and it begins at the equinox of March.

The Gregorian calendar, however, consists of only 365 days a year. If we didn't add a leap day on February 29 almost every four years, each calendar year would begin about 6 hours before the Planet completes its revolution around the Sun.

As a result, apart from the tropical year, our time reckoning will steadily drift and get gradually out of step with the seasons. With a deviation of about 6 hours per year the seasons within 100 years will change by about 24 calendar days. Enable this to continue for a while and in a matter of a few generations, Northern Hemisphere dwellers will celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer.
By giving Earth the extra time it needs to complete a full circle around the Sun, leap days correct the mistake.

Note: The year 2000 was somewhat remarkable as it was the first instance in which, since the beginning of the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the third criterion was used in most parts of the world.