how long does it take for earth to rotate once?
Report Abuse. scythian1950 has the right answer. It takes 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds for the Earth to rotate 360 degrees (one sidereal day) and approximately 24 hours to go from noon to noon (one solar day). If it takes 365 1/4 days to orbit the Sun, then the Earth has to rotate nearly 361 degrees to get back to noon.