Length of day
The length of the day is how long a day is. On Earth, a sidereal day is 23 hours and 56 minutes long, and a solar day is 24 hours. There are other planets with different types of day.
Length of the day on other planets
This uses Earth time.[1]
Increasing day length on Earth
The Earth is constantly losing angular velocity and rotational energy through a process called tidal acceleration, which leads to a slow lengthening of the day. Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon), and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. Earth).
A century ago, the average day was about 1.7 milliseconds shorter than today.[2] In the late Neoproterozoic about 620 million years ago a day had only about 21.9±0.4 hours.[3]
Length Of Day Media
Sunrise in Brisbane Water National Park, Australia
A daytime sky with white clouds
A plot of hours of daylight as a function of the date for changing latitudes. This plot was created using the simple sunrise equation, approximating the sun as a single point and does not take into account effects caused by the atmosphere or the diameter of the sun.
Earth daylight on the June solstice
Earth daylight on the December solstice
Related pages
References
- ↑ Enchanted Learning.com
- ↑ McCarthy D.D. & Seidelmann P.K. 2009. Time: from Earth rotation to atomic physics. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, pp. 88–89
- ↑ Williams, George E. (2000). "Geological constraints on the Precambrian history of Earth's rotation and the Moon's orbit". Reviews of Geophysics. 38 (1): 37–60. Bibcode:2000RvGeo..38...37W. doi:10.1029/1999RG900016. S2CID 51948507.
