A leap year is when we add an extra day to the calendar to make sure it stays in sync with how long it takes Earth to go around the Sun. Normally, the Earth takes about 365.25 days for one orbit. If we didn’t add that extra day every four years, our calendar would slowly get out of sync with the actual time it takes for the Earth to complete its journey around the Sun.
The reason this is important is to keep our calendar accurate. The calendar most people use, called the Gregorian calendar, adds an extra day to the month of February every four years. That extra day is February 29th.
1. **Length of the year:** Instead of having 365 days, a leap year has 366 days.
2. **February has 29 days:** Instead of the usual 28 days, February gets an extra day in a leap year, making it 29 days long.
3. **Compensation for Earth’s orbit:** Adding this extra day every four years helps our calendar match up better with how long it really takes the Earth to go around the Sun change it in a table
Without this adjustment, over time, our calendar would not match up with the seasons. Events that are supposed to happen at certain times of the year, like the start of spring or summer, would end up on different dates. The leap year system makes sure our calendar stays right in line with how our planet moves around the Sun.
