Truly astronomical

Larry Smith It comes every four years without fail. (Well, kinda.) Some people literally mark their calendars in anticipation; others find the whole affair to be impossibly boring. But, whether we like it or not, there’s nothing that we can do to stop it. It’s nearly as certain an occurrence as Christmas visitors overstaying their welcome. Obviously, the quadrennial event to which I am referring is… leap year! If you were thinking that I was talking about the Olympics or presidential elections, you may now repent. Few things necessitate the warning “Nerd alert!” more than discussions of leap year. Speaking of nerds, NPR is doing a whole series on the topic! In any case, a “common year” is 365 days – plus six hours or so. This extra ¼ of a day over the course of a year is why we have leap years. Feel free to point the finger at the people who created calendars during the past few thousand years without accounting for those “extra” hours. What would happen if we didn’t account for these hours? According to the Smithsonian Institution, our seasons would eventually be thrown off so much that summer would be in December instead of...