Does precession change the Length of the year?
I’ve enjoyed your page on the precession of the equinoxes at http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sprecess.htm I understand that a year is the time between two successive vernal equinoxes. In a year the earth will have orbited around the sun and the earth’s axis will have precessed a very little bit so that both the orbit around the sun and the precession of the earth’s axis go together to make up the length of time between two successive vernal equinoxes. Now suppose the earth’s axis were not precessing. How long would a year be? How much does the precession of the earth’s axis affect the length of a year? Thank you for your attention and any information will be greatly appreciated. Reply Dear Gary Let’s first try a simple minded approach. The phenomenon is called PREcession, so the spring equinox moves to a point a little EARLIER in the Sun’s journey around the zodiac. The location of the spring equinox makes one circuit of the zodiac in 26000 years. Therefor, if the spring equinox
