How long is an actual day?

Answer 1

A day is defined by the scientific community as 86400 seconds (which also happens to be 24 hours). A solar day is not exactly 24 hours which is why leap seconds are added to certain days.

To complicate things just a little further, a solar day is not exactly one full rotation of the earth. The earth revolves about 366 times each year as it orbits the sun. One of those revolutions is apparently lost because the sun appears to rotate about the earth once each year, hence we see 365 days each year rather than 366. A rotation of the earth when referenced to more distant stars is known as a sidereal day and it is around 3 minutes 56 seconds shorter than a solar day.

Answer 2

A single earthday is NOT 24 hours long, it is longer. It is simply easier to divide the earth up into 24 sections on a globe thus creating 24 'hours'. In reality, leap year occurs to account for the fact a day is actually just a bit longer than 24 hours.

Though people percieve that day to be 24 hours long its actually not! Simply put people who didn't completely understand our planets orbit set up the 24 hour day which is surprisingly close! An earth day is actually a bit over 24 hours long, about a 1/2 hour longer infact!

Random fact:

the earth isn't a circle, its actually and oval (bit wide in the middle).

Answer 3

The most legitimate way to answer this question is 24 hours.

Answer 4

An actual day on Earth, referred to as a solar day, is approximately 24 hours long. This is the time it takes for the Earth to make one complete rotation on its axis.

Answer 5

24