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 sidereal year is a unit of time that is a multiple of an SI unit. We have used the symbol a-sr.
From the Latin ‘sidus’ for ‘star’, sidereal is a term used to describe the orbital time of the earth or an object to complete one full cycle with respect to a fixed, distant star or constellation pattern.
The sidereal year is defined as 365.242 190 402 days of 86,400 SI seconds. This is 20 minutes and 24.5 seconds longer than a tropical year.