Period of Revolution and Leap year

Revolution of the Earth

The movement of the earth in its orbit around the sun in an anti-clockwise direction, that is, from west to east is called revolution of the earth. The earth revolves in an orbit at an average distance of 150 million km.

 The distance of the earth from sun varies time to time due to the elliptical shape of the orbit. About January 3rd the earth is closest to the sun and it is said to be at Perihelion (‘peri’ means close to and Helios means sun). At Perihelion, the distance is 147 million km.

Around July 4th the earth is farthest from the sun and it is said to be at Aphelion (Ap means away and Helios means sun). At Aphelion the distance of the earth is 152 million km away from the sun.

The period taken by the earth to complete one revolution around the sun is 365 days and 6 hours (5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds) or 365¼ days. The speed of the revolution is 1,07,000 km per hour. The speed is 30 km per second. The bullet from a gun travels with a speed of 9 km per second.

Period of Revolution and Leap year

The period of time the earth takes to make one revolution around the sun determines the length of one year. The earth takes 365 days and 6 hours to complete one revolution. Earth takes 365.25 days to complete one trip around the Sun .That extra quarter of a day presents a challenge to our calendar system, which has one year as 365 days. To keep our yearly calendars consistent with our orbit around the Sun once in, every four years we add one day.

The extra day added to is called a leap day, and the year the extra day is added to is called a leap year. The extra day is added to the month of February which has 29 days in a leap year.

Brain storming

How many birth days a person, whose life span supposed to be 60 years, would have seen in his/ her life time, if born on 29^th February?