sidereal period

sidereal period,

in astronomy, length of time a body takes to complete an orbit relative to the fixed stars. See sidereal time.

sidereal period

The time taken by a planet or satellite to complete one revolution about its primary, measured by reference to the background of stars. The sidereal month and sidereal year are the sidereal periods of the Moon and Earth. See also synodic period; Tables 1 and 2, backmatter.

Sidereal Period

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

A sidereal period is the time it takes a celestial body such as a planet to complete an orbit, as measured against the background of the fixed stars. Sidereal months (the time it takes the Moon to complete an orbit) and sidereal years (the time it takes Earth to complete an orbit) are examples of sidereal periods.

Sidereal Period

 

the time required for a celestial body, such as a planet or satellite, to complete one revolution around its primary, with respect to the stars. In the case of the revolution of the moon around the earth, the sidereal period is known as the sidereal month; in the case of the revolution of the earth around the sun, the sidereal period is the sidereal year. The concept of sidereal period is also applied to the revolution of artificial satellites around the earth. As for bodies that revolve around the sun, we speak not only of the sidereal periods of planets but also of, for example, the sidereal periods of comets. The relation between a planet’s sidereal period T, its synodic period S, and the sidereal year E is given by the equation

for the superior planets and by the equation

for the inferior planets.

sidereal period

[sī′dir·ē·əl ′pir·ē·əd]

(astronomy)

The length of time required for one revolution of a celestial body about its primary, with respect to the stars.