Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Monday, February 27th. The sun will rise at 7:24. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 2 minutes, setting at 6:26. The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:37 tomorrow morning.

Wednesday we’re going to have one of those special days that only occur once every 4 years making this a leap year. It’s the intercalary day that compensates for that fact that the earth takes 365 and nearly a quarter day to orbit the sun. That orbit is a year, and those quarter days are accumulated and added as the last day of February on years divisible by 4. The Gregorian reform makes a slight adjustment on most century years, making century years not divisible by 400 ordinary years to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. The Romans, from who we’ve gotten our calendar considered the month of February as unlucky, and so they shortened it. Enjoy your extra day Wednesday. * Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.