year
Sign in to savethumb|alt=see caption|upright=1.5|An animation of the inner Solar System planets' orbit around the Sun. The duration of the year is the time taken to go around the Sun. A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years.
AI overview
A year is the time it takes for Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun, and it serves as a fundamental unit for measuring time in our calendar systems. The exact length varies slightly depending on how it's measured—the tropical year used in our everyday calendar is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, which we account for by adding leap years to keep our calendars aligned with Earth's actual position relative to the Sun.
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Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- orbital period
- Has part
- month
- Based on
- heliocentric orbit
- Image
- Analemma fishburn.tif
Show 7 more facts
- P910
- Category:Year
- P5008
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4 (2022)
- P6104
- WikiProject Years
- P9059
Article
37 sectionsContents
- Calendar year
- Abbreviation
- Etymology
- Intercalation
- Julian calendar
- Revised Julian calendar
- Gregorian calendar
- Other calendars
- Year numbering
- Pragmatic divisions
- Fiscal year
- Academic year
- Astronomical years
- Julian year
- Sidereal, tropical, and anomalistic years
- Draconic year {{anchor|Draconitic year}}
- Full moon cycle
- Lunar year
- Vague year
- Heliacal year
- Sothic year
- Gaussian year
- Besselian year
- Variation in the length of the year and the day
- Summary
- Greater astronomical years
- Equinoctial cycle
- Galactic year
- IUPAC–IUGS proposal
- Seasonal year
- Symbols and abbreviations
- SI prefix multipliers
- Abbreviations for "years ago"
- See also
- References
- Notes
- Further reading
thumb|alt=see caption|upright=1.5|An animation of the inner Solar System planets' orbit around the Sun. The duration of the year is the time taken to go around the Sun. A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years.
The term 'year' is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moon's phasessee lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc.