It’s a Leap! 2024 is Here!
January 2, 2024 7:33AM EST
alpha library
- 2024 is finally here – and it will be an extra-long wait until 2025.
- That’s because 2024 is a Leap Year, meaning we all get an extra day on February 29th.
- Why do we have Leap Years? Because the Earth takes a little more than 365 days to orbit the Sun (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to be exact.) Adding an extra day every four years keeps us from gradually moving out of sync with the seasons.
- There are exceptions – years divisible by 100 are not Leap Years, unless they’re also divisible by 400 (so 2100 won’t be a Leap Year, but 2000 was.)
- Each Leap Year, an estimated 5 million ‘Leap Year’ babies are born on Feb. 29th, meaning they technically only get a birthday once every four years.
