Convert Year (Leap) (y (leap)) to Year (Sidereal) (y (sidereal)) instantly.
About these units
Year (Leap) (y (leap))
A leap year contains 366 days, occurring roughly every four years in the Gregorian calendar to correct for the fact that a tropical year is not exactly 365 days. Leap years prevent seasonal drift by compensating for the extra 0.2422 days in each solar year. Without leap-year corrections, seasons would shift by one full day every four years, eventually placing summer in December over the course of centuries. Leap years are essential to maintaining synchrony between human calendars and Earth's orbital mechanics, illustrating how civil timekeeping must regularly adjust for astronomical reality.
Year (Sidereal) (y (sidereal))
A sidereal year is the time it takes Earth to complete one full orbit relative to distant fixed stars, lasting approximately 365.25636 days. This is the "true" orbital period of Earth in space, unaffected by precession-related shifts of the equinoxes. Sidereal years are used in celestial mechanics, spacecraft navigation, and modeling solar system dynamics. The slight difference between the tropical and sidereal year (about 20 minutes) reveals how Earth's wobbling axis alters how we perceive time, creating two distinct astronomical year definitions.