We’re approaching the rarest date in our calendar – Thursday 29 February – a date that only occurs once every four years.

That’s because 2024 is a leap year.

Normally, a year is 365 days long, because it takes 365 days for the Earth to orbit the sun.

However, it actually takes a little bit longer. It takes 365 days plus five hours, 48 minutes and 56 seconds, to be exact!

If we round that extra time up to six hours, it means that every four years, we’ve earned an additional 24 hours (because 6 x 4 = 24).

To reset ourselves, once every four years we add an extra 24 hours (or one day) to our calendar, making it 366 days long. These years are called leap years, and they keep us in sync with Earth’s orbits around the sun.

If we didn’t stay in sync, the seasons would drift and, eventually, Christmas in the UK would be in summer!

With this in mind, we were wondering…