TROPICALYEAR

Tropical year

A tropical year, for general purposes, is the length of time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth; for example, the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the seasonal cycle does not remain exactly synchronized with the position of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. As a consequence, the tropical year is about 20 minutes shorter than the time it takes Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun as measured with respect to the fixed stars .

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tropical year

Noun

  1. The time that it takes for the Sun to return to the same position along the ecliptic, as viewed from the Earth, especially:
  2. A vernal equinox year, the time between two successive vernal equinoxes.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: tropical year
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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