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At the equator, the solar rotation period is 24.47 days. This is called the sidereal rotation period, and should not be confused with the synodic rotation period of 26.24 days, which is the time for a fixed feature on the Sun to rotate to the same apparent position as viewed from Earth (the Earth's orbital rotation is in the same direction as the Sun's rotation).
On a prograde planet like the Earth, the sidereal day is shorter than the solar day. At time 1, the Sun and a certain distant star are both overhead. At time 2, the planet has rotated 360° and the distant star is overhead again (1→2 = one sidereal day). But it is not until a little later, at time 3, that the Sun is overhead again (1→3 = one solar day). More simply, 1→2 is a complete ...
Because energy transport in the Sun is a process that involves photons in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter, the time scale of energy transport in the Sun is longer, on the order of 30,000,000 years. This is the time it would take the Sun to return to a stable state if the rate of energy generation in its core were suddenly changed. [106]
The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [2]
Most sun charts plot azimuth versus altitude throughout the days of the winter solstice and summer solstice, as well as a number of intervening days.Since the apparent movement of the Sun as viewed from Earth is nearly symmetrical about the solstice, plotting dates for one half of the year gives a good approximation for the rest of the year.
The time when the Sun transits the observer's meridian depends on the geographic longitude. To find the Sun's position for a given location at a given time, one may therefore proceed in three steps as follows: [1] [2] calculate the Sun's position in the ecliptic coordinate system, convert to the equatorial coordinate system, and
At the time of the summer or winter solstices, the Sun is 23.44° degrees above or below the horizon, respectively, irrespective of time of day. Whilst the Sun is up (during summer months) it will circle around the whole sky (clockwise from the North Pole and counter-clockwise from the South Pole), appearing to stay at the same angle from the ...
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...