Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
solar year
References
Videos
Study the different ways of defining a year - a tropical year, a sidereal year, and the anomalistic year
Britannica AI Icon

solar year

chronology
Also known as: tropical year
Written by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  EncyclopƦdia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last updated

Quick Summary

Study the different ways of defining a year - a tropical year, a sidereal year, and the anomalistic year
Study the different ways of defining a year - a tropical year, a sidereal year, and the anomalistic year Learn about the different definitions of a year: a tropical year, a sidereal year, and an anomalistic year.

The solar year, also known as the tropical year, is the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun, approximately 365.2422 days. This duration is crucial for calendars to stay aligned with the seasons. The Gregorian calendar, the most widely used today, accounts for this by having 365 days in a common year and adding an extra day (a leap day) every four years, making it a leap year of 366 days. This system corrects for the fractional part of the day, preventing the calendar from drifting out of sync with astronomical events like the vernal equinox.123

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
4 Britannica Sources
  1. year
  2. solar calendar
  3. calendar - Time determination by stars, Sun, and Moon
  4. solar year

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.