Year - Astronomical Years - Sidereal, Tropical, and Anomalistic Years

Sidereal, Tropical, and Anomalistic Years

The relations among these are considered more fully in Axial precession (astronomy).

Each of these three years can be loosely called an 'astronomical year'.

The sidereal year is the time taken for the Earth to complete one revolution of its orbit, as measured against a fixed frame of reference (such as the fixed stars, Latin sidera, singular sidus). Its average duration is 365.256363004 mean solar days (365 d 6 h 9 min 9.76 s) (at the epoch J2000.0 = January 1, 2000, 12:00:00 TT).

The tropical year is the period of time for the ecliptic longitude of the Sun to increase by 360 degrees. Since the Sun's ecliptic longitude is measured with respect to the equinox, the tropical year comprises a complete cycle of the seasons; because of the biological and socio-economic importance of the seasons, the tropical year is the basis of most calendars. The tropical year is commonly defined for the mean motion of the Sun along the ecliptic. This differs from the actual time between passages of e.g. the northward equinox for several reasons explained below. Because of the Earth's axial precession, this year is about 20 minutes shorter than the sidereal year. The mean tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds (= 365.24219 days).

The anomalistic year is the time taken for the Earth to complete one revolution with respect to its apsides. The orbit of the Earth is elliptical; the extreme points, called apsides, are the perihelion, where the Earth is closest to the Sun (January 3 in 2011), and the aphelion, where the Earth is farthest from the Sun (July 4 in 2011). The anomalistic year is usually defined as the time between perihelion passages. Its average duration is 365.259636 days (365 d 6 h 13 min 52.6 s) (at the epoch J2011.0).

If Earth moved in an ideal Kepler orbit, i.e. a perfect ellipse with the Sun fixed at one focus, each kind of year would always have the same duration, and the sidereal and anomalistic years would be equal. Because of perturbations by the gravity of other planets, Earth's motion varies slightly, causing the sidereal and tropical years to vary in length by about 25 minutes (see table below). Both are affected in the same way, so that the sidereal year is consistently 20 minutes longer than the tropical year, provided that they are measured in the same way.

An example of a year that will have a duration exceeding the average value of 365.24219 SI days with as much as 24.23 minutes is the one that will begin at winter solstice December 21, 2042 17:47:45.5 (Atomic time).