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Ecliptic coordinates are convenient for specifying positions of Solar System objects, as most of the planets' orbits have small inclinations to the ecliptic, and therefore always appear relatively close to it on the sky. Because Earth's orbit, and hence the ecliptic, moves very little, it is a relatively fixed reference with respect to the stars.
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 ...
A year has about 365.24 solar days but 366.24 sidereal days. Therefore, there is one fewer solar day per year than there are sidereal days, similar to an observation of the coin rotation paradox. [5] This makes a sidereal day approximately 365.24 / 366.24 times the length of the 24-hour solar day.
A sidereal day is about 4 minutes less than a solar day of 24 hours (23 hours 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds), or 0.99726968 of a solar day of 24 hours. [7] There are about 366.2422 stellar days in one mean tropical year (one stellar day more than the number of solar days). [8]
Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. [185] A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. [2]
This is longer than the sidereal period of its orbit around Earth, which is 27.3 mean solar days, owing to the motion of Earth around the Sun. The draconitic period (also draconic period or nodal period ), is the time that elapses between two passages of the object through its ascending node , the point of its orbit where it crosses the ...
Friedrich Bessel used Schröter's drawings to erroneously estimate the rotation period as 24 hours and an axial tilt of 70°. [172] In the 1880s, Giovanni Schiaparelli mapped the planet more accurately, and suggested that Mercury's rotational period was 88 days, the same as its orbital period due to tidal locking. [173]
The period can be in the range from 88 minutes for a very low orbit (a = 6554 km, i = 96°) to 3.8 hours (a = 12 352 km, but this orbit would be equatorial, with i = 180°). A period longer than 3.8 hours may be possible by using an eccentric orbit with p < 12 352 km but a > 12 352 km.