Sidereal Day (Noun)
Meaning
The time for one complete rotation of the earth relative to a particular star, about 4 minutes shorter than a mean solar day.
Classification
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations.
Examples
- A sidereal day is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once on its axis relative to the fixed stars in the sky.
- The astronomers used the concept of a sidereal day to calculate the exact position of the stars they were studying.
- The sidereal day is about 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds, making it approximately 4 minutes shorter than a mean solar day.
- Understanding the sidereal day helped the stargazers synchronize their telescopes to accurately track celestial objects.
- Scientists consider the sidereal day a fundamental unit of time in astronomy, as it's based on the Earth's rotation relative to the stars.