The sidereal day is a unit of time used by astronomers and is derived from the SI unit system. We have used the symbol d-sr.
Sidereal literally means "of the stars". Otherwise known as the "orbital period", it defines the time period taken for two point masses to orbit each other.
On Earth, we used the solar day to regularise time and this represents the period taken to orbit the sun. The sidereal day (or stellar day) is the time taken for the earth to rotate with respect to a distant star and equals 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.0905 seconds (or 86164.1 s, 23.934 h).
The tropical year is a unit of time that is a multiple of an SI unit. We have used the symbol at.
The average tropical year up to the year 2000 was 365.2422 days of 86400 seconds.
The phrase “tropical” comes from the Greek for “turn”; tropikos. Following this, and where the “turn” referred to is the same as that defining the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer (the extreme latitudes North and South where the sun can still appear directly overhead or perpendicular to the Earth’s surface); a tropical year is known as the time it takes the sun to complete a full cycle of seasons and return to the same relative position to the observer on Earth.
In 1627, Johannes Kepler used the findings of Tycho Brahe and Waltherus (the Rudolphine Tables) to establish the mean tropical year as 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds.