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 second is the SI base unit for time and has the symbol s.
The second is commonly understood to be 1/86400 of a day; there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.
Analog and digital watches and clocks almost all measure and display the progression of time via the use of a second counter / hand - and is generally considered the lowest denomination of time.
The earliest display and use of seconds was in the last half of the 16th century. Prior to this, it was not considered accurate enough to measure in seconds as a mechanical device was needed to ensure consistency.
In 1656, a Dutch scientist invented the first pendulum clock that measured seconds. His name was Christiaan Huygens.