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To: upchuck
On the day of the solstice Steve Doocy said it was the longest day of the year, then corrected himself saying it was the day with the most daylight, since every day is 24 hours long.

He was wrong--one day this year is the longest day, and it's today.

15 posted on 06/30/2012 7:14:45 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

The solar day fluctuates very slightly due to complications in the earth’s rotation. Most of these fluctuations affect both solar and sidereal days; I think the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit also affects solar time.

[For those who are unfamiliar with this, siderial time is measured by Earth’s rotation against the (almost) fixed stars, whereas solar time, which is measured by UT1, is measured by its rotation against the Sun. Because the Earth also orbits the Sun in the same direction as its rotation, it takes one additional revolution to complete a solar year than it does a siderial year. This causes the solar day to be about four minutes longer than a siderial day.]

The sidereal day is stretching out quite predictably, and does not include leap seconds. So in sidereal time, the longest day of the year is December 31. I think this is also true of solar time in years without leap seconds. Note that most years do now have a leap second (35 of them since 1967).


27 posted on 06/30/2012 8:40:41 AM PDT by Erasmus (Zwischen des Teufels und des tiefen, blauen Meers)
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