See, I love stuff like this — figuring out how long a "day" is, and then trying to make that fit into a "year" (which also needs to be defined, and which, in this not-very-intelligently-designed universe is never an exact amount). #ddtb
Reshared post from +Philip Plait
#BAFact: A complete cycle of day and night is called a nychthemeron. How about that?
More info: the word "day" usually means "daytime" in casual conversation, but you can tell by context when someone instead means a 24 hour period. The thing is, there are different kinds of days! Solar day, sidereal day, and more. Same thing for year: it depends on what you're using to measure them. In the link below I have some details on all that. It's funny how a seemingly simple notion turns out to be fairly complex when you look at it in detail.
Embedded Link
Another orbit? Why, you don’t look a rotation older than 4.56 billion years! | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Astronomy | new year | In what is becoming an annual January tradition celebrating my laziness, I'm reposting this article about why astronomers are no fun at New Year's parties. Well