Question

What is the (approximate) fractional difference in time between the sidereal day and the solar day? (Is it one tenth? One hundredth? One thousandth? Something else?) Hint: convert all numbers into seconds, with one hour equal to 60 minutes and one minute equal to 60 seconds. Show your work.

Answer 1

Answer:

0.9972

Explanation:

The sidereal day has a duration of 23 hours 56 minutes and  4 seconds approximately. The solar day has a duration of 24 hours. We have to convert the previous times to seconds:

Solar day:

$24h*\frac{60min}{1h}*\frac{60s}{1min}=86400$

Sidereal day:

$23h*\frac{60min}{1h}+56min=1436min\\1436min*\frac{60s}{1min}+4s=86164s$

Now, we calculate the fractional difference:

$\frac{86164s}{86400s}=0.9972$