which is longer, the sidereal or solar day? by how much?
Naturally, these hours, minutes, and seconds are shorter than the solar hours, minutes, and seconds you are familiar with. One solar day is 24 solar hours long, and one sidereal day is 24 sidereal hours long, but one sidereal day is 23 solar hours and 56 solar minutes long. This exercise was based on a help section of CyberSky. A shareware version of CyberSky is available from http://www.cybersky.com .