HELP !!the earth has a solar day of 24 hours...and the earth has a sedireal day if 23 and odd minutes...?

Question

basiaclly the quesiton is...the salor day is 4 mintues longer than the sedireal day...now along time ago...the earth had a day of 14 hours instead or 24...would the solar day still be 4 mintues longer or would the time get shorter

Answer 1

You have a problem in that someone keeps giving thumbs-down to those who are explaining to you exactly why we have sidereal days and solar days, while the ones that just involve calculations are getting thumbs-up.

As a previous answerer mentioned, the difference between solar and sidereal is caused by the fact that a point on the Earth's surface takes 23 hours 56.1 mins (roughly) to reach the same orientation with respect to the universe again. But in that time, the Earth has moved further around the orbit of the sun, so that point on the Earth is not at the same orientation with respect to the sun yet. The planet has to spin for another 3 and a bit minutes before that happens.

Now, forget how many minutes it is, for the time being, because that's an arbitrary unit of time. If the Earth had a 14-hour day (using the same hours as we use now), then it means it was spinning on its axis faster than now. We're also assuming that it was moving around the sun at the same speed as now.

So if the Earth is spinning faster, then the sidereal day (when the planet faces the same orientation compared to the universe) is shorter than now, and the planet still has to spin a bit further to be facing the sun with the same orientation. It will have to spin just as far as it does now, but it will reach that point faster than it does now. So that "catch up" time would be shorter.

I can't be bothered to do the calculations in today's units of time, but that's the mechanics of it.

Answer 2

If the Earth had a 14 hour day and the same Orbit around the Sun, then the solar day would still be 4 minutes longer.

If you are standing in Grenwich England (prime meridian) and it is noon, the time for the Earth to rotate exactly 360 degrees (one circle) is the short day, but if you look up 360 degrees later it will be 4 minutes to noon. That is because while the Earth rotates a full circle, it also moves in it's orbit around the Sun, so the position of the Sun apparently moves, and it takes another 4 minutes of rotation to 'catch up'.

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Answer 3

The difference in the solar and sidereal day is strictly due to the orbit of the Earth around the sun.

The sidereal day is the time it takes for the Earth to complete one rotation relative to the stars.
Because, relative to the stars, the Sun appears to move around the Earth once per year, there is one less solar day per year than there are sidereal days.

So no matter how long our day is, as long as the orbit around the sun is the same path then the difference between the 2 types of days would remain the same.

Answer 4

The difference would be less. Right now, the difference is 3.932 minutes, which rounds to 4 minutes.

The 4 minutes comes from:

24 * 60 = 1440 minutes per day
year = 525960 minutes
1440 / ( 525960 / 1440 ) = 3.943 minutes per day
(There are reasons for the 0.009 minutes discrepancy, but I won't go into them now.)

So if the day was 14 hours, then the difference would be
14 * 60 = 840 minutes per day
year = 525960 (same length of year)
840 / ( 525960 / 840) = 1.342 minutes per day

Answer 5

hours per year: 14*365.25 = 8766
8766/14=626.14 days per year
360/626.14=.57495 degrees per day that the solar day
passes the sidereal day, or 840*.57295/360 or 1minute 20.5 seconds longer. Sidereal day is 13hours 58min 40seconds