On Twitter today, famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the world’s celebrity scientists, released a video he shot for National Geographic, giving you more facts than you ever wanted to know about the science and math behind the phenomenon of Leap Year. Every four years, we are treated to a 366-day year, he explains, because it takes 365 ¼ days for the Earth to circle the sun. And rather than count that quarter-day every year, we just save them up until we have a full day, and then tack it onto the end of February (why February? Maybe we felt bad that it only ever gets 28 days).
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But in addition to the usual fact, Tyson also explains why certain scheduled years don’t have leap years. It’s all very fascinating and presented in Tyson’s accessible, inimitable, conversational style. Watch the below video, and learn a bit about your planet. After all, we live here.
Top Image: Fuzzy Door Productions
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
