A day is a unit of time. In common usage, it is an interval equal to 24 hours. It also can mean the consecutive period of time during which the Sun is above the horizon of a location, also known as daytime. The period of time measured from local noon to the following local noon is called a solar day.
Several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1967, the second was redefined in terms of the wavelength of light, and it became the SI base unit of time. The unit of measurement for time called "day", redefined in 1967 as 86,400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but it is accepted for use with SI. A civil day is usually also 86,400 seconds, plus or minus a possible leap second in Coordinated Universal Time UTC, and, in some locations, occasionally plus or minus an hour when changing from or to daylight saving time. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a calendar date, as in answer to the question "On which day?" Day also refers to the part of the day that is not night — also known as 'daytime'. The life patterns of humans and many other species are related to Earth's solar day and the cycle of day and night (see circadian rhythms).
The average length of a solar day on Earth is about 86,400 seconds (24 hours) and there are about 365.2422 solar days in one mean tropical year. Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed), is called stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours and there are about 366.2422 in one mean tropical year (one more stellar day than the number of solar days). Mainly due to tidal effects, the Earth's rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar 'days'. Other planets and moons also have stellar and solar days.
Read more about Day: Introduction, Etymology, International System of Units (SI), Astronomy, Colloquial, Civil Day, Leap Seconds, Boundaries of The Day, 24 Hours Vs Daytime
Other articles related to "day, days":
... February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar ... There are 310 days remaining until the end of the year (311 in leap years) ... By Roman custom, February 24 is the day added to a leap year in the Julian calendar ...
... To distinguish between a full day and daytime, the word nychthemeron (from Greek for a night and a day) may be used in English for the former, or more colloquially ... Other languages also have a separate word for a full day, such as vuorokausi in Finnish, ööpäev in Estonian, dygn in Swedish, døgn in Danish, døgn in Norwegian, sólarhringur in Icelandic, etmaal in Dutch ... In Italian, giorno is used to indicate a full day, while dì means daytime ...
... In Western Christianity, All Souls' Day, also known as the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, is observed principally in the Catholic Church, although ... The Eastern Orthodox Church observes several All Souls' Days during the year ... In some other languages the celebration, not necessarily on the same date, is known as Day of the Dead ...
... Christian Feast Day Engelbert II of Berg Herculanus of Perugia Prosdocimus Vicente Liem de la Paz Willibrord November 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Commemoration Day, the anniversary of Ben Ali's ... (Tunisia) National Day, after Treaty of Pyrenees ... Northern Catalonia) National Revolution and Solidarity Day (Bangladesh) October Revolution Day (the Soviet Union (former, official), modern Russia (unofficial ...
... Yom Yerushalayim (יום ירושלים) — 28 Iyar Jerusalem Day marks the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem and The Temple Mount under Jewish rule during the Six-Day War almost 1900 years after the destruction ...
Famous quotes containing the word day:
“We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.”
—Paul Auster (b. 1947)
“The years of imprisonment hardened me.... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn’t be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear. ... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.”
—Winnie Mandela (b. 1936)
“Our fear that Communism might some day take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.”
—Anonymous U.S. Analyst In 1967. Quoted in “The Uses of Anticommunism,” vol. 21, published in The Socialist Register (1985)