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The sidereal year is the time taken for the Sun to return to the same position with respect to the stars of the celestial sphere. It is the orbital period of Earth, equal to 365.25636042 mean solar days (that is 366.25636042 earth rotations or sidereal days). A true cycle will always compare two objects that differ mathematically by exactly 1. The sidereal year is 20 minutes and 24 seconds longer than the tropical year.

The Sun and the stars cannot be seen at the same time; if one looks every dawn at the eastern sky, the last stars seen appearing are not always the same. In a week or two an upward shift can be noted. As an example, in July in the Northern Hemisphere, Orion cannot be seen in the dawn sky, but in August it becomes visible. In a year, all the constellations rotate through the entire sky.

If one looks regularly at the sky before dawn, this motion is much more noticeable and easier to measure than the north/south shift of the sunrise point in the horizon, which defines the tropical year on which the Gregorian calendar is based. This is the reason many cultures started their year on the first day a particular special star, (Sirius, for instance), could be seen in the East at dawn. In Hesiod's Works and Days, the times of the year for sowing, harvest, and so on are given by reference to the first visibility of stars.

Up to the time of Hipparchus, the years measured by the stars were thought to be exactly as long as the tropical years. In fact, sidereal years are very slightly longer than tropical years. The difference is caused by the precession of the equinoxes. One sidereal year is roughly equal to 1 + 1/26000 or 1.000039 tropical years.

• Orbital period
• Anomalistic year
• Gaussian year
• Julian year (astronomy)
• Tropical year