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Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds with respect to other distant stars . Earth's rotation is slowing slightly with time; thus, a day was shorter in the past. This is due to the tidal effects the Moon has on Earth's rotation.
The March equinox itself precesses slowly westward relative to the fixed stars, completing one revolution in about 25,800 years, so the misnamed "sidereal" day ("sidereal" is derived from the Latin sidus meaning "star") is 0.0084 seconds shorter than the stellar day, Earth's actual period of rotation relative to the fixed stars. [3]
Screenshot of the UTC clock from time.gov during the leap second on 31 December 2016.. A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to accommodate the difference between precise time (International Atomic Time (TAI), as measured by atomic clocks) and imprecise observed solar time (), which varies due to irregularities and long-term ...
where latitudes north and south of the equator are defined as positive and negative, respectively. A "pendulum day" is the time needed for the plane of a freely suspended Foucault pendulum to complete an apparent rotation about the local vertical. This is one sidereal day divided by the sine of the latitude.
Rotation (angular displacement) of a planar figure around a point Rotational orbit v spin Relations between rotation axis, plane of orbit and axial tilt (for Earth) Mathematically, a rotation is a rigid body movement which, unlike a translation, keeps at least one point fixed. This definition applies to rotations in two dimensions (in a plane ...
The constant term of this speed (5,028.796195 arcseconds per century in above equation) corresponds to one full precession circle in 25,771.57534 years (one full circle of 360 degrees divided by 50.28796195 arcseconds per year) [38] although some other sources put the value at 25771.4 years, leaving a small uncertainty.
A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night. This daily cycle drives circadian rhythms in many organisms, which are vital to many life processes.
Used to measure the time between alternating power cycles. Also a casual term for a short period of time. centisecond: 10 −2 s: One hundredth of a second. decisecond: 10 −1 s: One tenth of a second. second: 1 s: SI base unit for time. decasecond: 10 s: Ten seconds (one sixth of a minute) minute: 60 s: hectosecond: 100 s: milliday: 1/1000 d ...