Jasmine: Hi, I'm Jasmine.
Chrissy: And I'm Chrissy.
Jasmine: We're from NIU steam and...
Chrissy: This is The Sound of Science on WNIJ.
Jasmine: For all the people out there who wish there were a few more hours in the day to get things done. I'm happy to say that you will get an extra 24 of them this year. 2024 is an official leap year. But where do those extra hours come from?
Chrissy: To keep things simple and even we say that a day on Earth is 24 hours and a year is 365 days, but real life is rarely that even. Though Earth-days only vary by a few milliseconds, an Earth-year is truly 365 days, six hours, nine minutes and 10 seconds.
Jasmine: To account for those extra hours, a day is added to the end of February. Though it seems like it comes once every four years, like clockwork, there's a formula. Leap years occur in a year that is divisible by four, in years that are divisible by 100, also must be divisible by 400.
Chrissy: Earlier we mentioned that there's a slight variation in how long the Earth Day is. This is caused by slight gravitational difference between the Earth and the sun, moon, and other space objects. Sometimes a strong earthquake will shift the planets distribution of mass and affect its rotation.
Jasmine: An organization called the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service keeps track of these differences and will add or subtract leap seconds. This will usually occur on June 30 or December 31. The last time a leap second was altered was on New Year's Eve in 2016.
Chrissy: You've been listening to The Sound of Science on WNIJ where you learn something new every day.
Jasmine: ...And a special Happy Birthday to all the "leaplings" out there.
