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Venus rotates retrograde with a sidereal day lasting about 243.0 Earth days, or about 1.08 times its orbital period of 224.7 Earth days; hence by the retrograde formula its solar day is about 116.8 Earth days, and it has about 1.9 solar days per orbital period.
A mean solar day is about 3 minutes 56 seconds longer than a mean sidereal day, or 1 ⁄ 366 more than a mean sidereal day. In astronomy, sidereal time is used to predict when a star will reach its highest point in the sky. For accurate astronomical work on land, it was usual to observe sidereal time rather than solar time to measure mean solar ...
[20] [21] Based on geological studies of tidal rhythmites, the day was 21.9±0.4 hours long 620 million years ago and there were 13.1±0.1 synodic months/year and 400±7 solar days/year. The average recession rate of the Moon between then and now has been 2.17±0.31 cm/year, which is about half the present rate.
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period [1] of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the sidereal rotation period (or sidereal day), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars (inertial space).
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital period means that, for an observer on Earth's surface, an object in geosynchronous orbit returns to ...
Thus, the sidereal day is shorter than the stellar day by about 8.4 ms. [37] Both the stellar day and the sidereal day are shorter than the mean solar day by about 3 minutes 56 seconds. This is a result of the Earth turning 1 additional rotation, relative to the celestial reference frame, as it orbits the Sun (so 366.24 rotations/y).
On a prograde planet like the Earth, the sidereal day is shorter than the solar day. At time 1, the Sun and a certain distant star are both overhead. At time 2, the planet has rotated 360° and the distant star is overhead again (1→2 = one sidereal day). But it is not until a little later, at time 3, that the Sun is overhead again (1→3 = one solar day). More simply, 1→2 is a complete ...
Subdivisions of the day include the hour (1/24 of a day), which is further subdivided into minutes and seconds. The second is the international standard unit (SI unit) for science. Celestial sphere-based: as in sidereal time, where the apparent movement of the stars and constellations across the sky is used to calculate the length of a year.