A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun.OED, s.v. "year". In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 Synodic day, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years.
The term 'year' is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moon's phasessee lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc.
Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the , marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar climate regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In tropics and subtropics regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet season and are recognized and tracked.
By extension, the term 'year' can also be applied to the time taken for the orbit of any astronomical object around its Primary body for example the Martian year of roughly 1.88 Earth years.
The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, such as the Great Year.OED, s.v. "year", entry 2.b.: " transf. Applied to a very long period or cycle (in chronology or mythology, or vaguely in poetic use)."
Latin annus (a 2nd declension masculine noun; annum is the accusative case; annī is genitive singular and nominative plural; annō the dative and ablative singular) is from a PIE noun , which also yielded Gothic aþn "year" (only the dative plural aþnam is attested).
Although most languages treat the word as thematic *yeh₁r-o-, there is evidence for an original derivation with an *-r/n suffix, *yeh₁-ro-. Both Indo-European words for year, *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no-, would then be derived from verbal roots meaning "to go, move", *h₁ey- and *h₂et-, respectively (compare Vedic Sanskrit éti "goes", atasi "thou goest, wanderest"). A number of English words are derived from Latin annus, such as , annuity, anniversary, etc.; per annum means "each year", anno Domini]] means "in the year of the Lord".
The Greek word for "year", ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus "old", from the PIE word *wetos- "year", also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit "year" and "yearling (calf)", the latter also reflected in Latin vitulus "bull calf", English wether "ram" (Old English weðer, Gothic wiþrus "lamb").
In some languages, it is common to count years by referencing to one season, as in "summers", or "winters", or "harvests". Examples include Chinese 年 "year", originally 秂, an ideographic compound of a person carrying a bundle of wheat denoting "harvest". Slavic besides godŭ "time period; year" uses lěto "summer; year".
In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time defined as 365.25 days, each of exactly (SI base unit), totaling exactly 31,557,600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year.
A modern adaptation of the historical Jalali calendar, known as the Solar Hijri calendar (1925), is a purely solar calendar with an irregular pattern of leap days based on observation (or astronomical computation), aiming to place new year (Nowruz) on the day of March equinox (for the time zone of Tehran), as opposed to using an algorithmic system of leap years.
The Gregorian calendar era is the world's most widely used civil calendar.
Its epoch is a 6th century estimate of the date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Two notations are used to indicate year numbering in the Gregorian calendar: the Christian "Anno Domini" (meaning "in the year of the Lord"), abbreviated AD; and "Common Era", abbreviated CE, preferred by many of other faiths and none. Year numbers are based on inclusive counting, so that there is no "year zero". Years before the epoch are abbreviated BC for Before Christ or BCE for Before the Common Era. In Astronomical year numbering, positive numbers indicate years AD/CE, the number 0 designates 1 BC/BCE, −1 designates 2 BC/BCE, and so on.Other eras include that of Ancient Rome, Ab Urbe Condita ("from the foundation of Rome), abbreviated AUC; Anno Mundi ("year of the world"), used for the Hebrew calendar and abbreviated AM; and the Japanese imperial eras. The Islamic Hijri year, (year of the Hijrah, Anno Hegirae abbreviated AH), is a lunar calendar of twelve and thus is shorter than a solar year.
For example, in Canada and India the fiscal year runs from April 1; in the United Kingdom it runs from April 1 for purposes of corporation tax and government financial statements, but from April 6 for purposes of personal taxation and payment of state benefits; in Australia it runs from July 1; while in the United States the fiscal year of the federal government runs from October 1.
Some schools in the UK, Canada and the United States divide the academic year into three roughly equal-length terms (called trimesters or quarters in the United States), roughly coinciding with autumn, winter, and spring. At some, a shortened summer session, sometimes considered part of the regular academic year, is attended by students on a voluntary or elective basis. Other schools break the year into two main semesters, a first (typically August through December) and a second semester (January through May). Each of these main semesters may be split in half by mid-term exams, and each of the halves is referred to as a quarter (or term in some countries). There may also be a voluntary summer session or a short January session.
Some other schools, including some in the United States, have four marking periods. Some schools in the United States, notably Boston Latin School, may divide the year into five or more marking periods. Some state in defense of this that there is perhaps a positive correlation between report frequency and academic achievement.
There are typically 180 days of teaching each year in schools in the US, excluding weekends and breaks, while there are 190 days for pupils in state schools in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and 200 for pupils in Australia.
In India the academic year normally starts from June 1 and ends on May 31. Though schools start closing from mid-March, the actual academic closure is on May 31 and in Nepal it starts from July 15.
Schools and universities in Australia typically have academic years that roughly align with the calendar year (i.e., starting in February or March and ending in October to December), as the southern hemisphere experiences summer from December to February.
In the Unified Code for Units of Measure (but not according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics or the International Union of Geological Sciences, see below), the symbol 'a' (without subscript) always refers to the Julian year, 'aj', of exactly .
The SI multiplier prefixes may be applied to it to form "ka", "Ma", etc.
The scientific Julian year is not to be confused with a year in the Jullian calendar. The scientific Julian year is a multiple of the SI second; it is today "astronomical" only in the sense "used in astronomy", whilst true astronomical years are based on the movements of celestial bodies.
The sidereal year is the time taken for the Earth to complete one revolution of its orbit, as measured against a fixed frame of reference (such as the fixed stars, Latin sidera, singular sidus). Its average duration is days (365 d 6 h 9 min 9.76 s) (at the epoch J2000.0 = January 1, 2000, 12:00:00 Terrestrial Time).International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service. (2010). IERS EOP PC Useful constants.
Today the mean tropical year is defined as the period of time for the mean ecliptic longitude of the Sun to increase by 360 degrees.Richards, E.G. (2013). Calendars. In S.E. Urban & P.K. Seidelmann (Eds.), Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac (3rd ed.). Mill Valley, CA: University Science Books. p. 586. Since the Sun's ecliptic longitude is measured with respect to the equinox, and (c. 2022). In "Glossary", The Astronomical Almanac Online. United States Naval Observatory. the tropical year comprises a complete cycle of the seasons and is the basis of such as the internationally used Gregorian calendar. The modern definition of mean tropical year differs from the actual time between passages of, e.g., the northward equinox, by a minute or two, for several reasons explained below. Because of the Earth's axial precession, this year is about 20 minutes shorter than the sidereal year. The mean tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds, using the modern definition (= × ). The length of the tropical year varies a bit over thousands of years because the rate of axial precession is not constant.
The anomalistic year is the time taken for the Earth to complete one revolution with respect to its Apsis. The orbit of the Earth is elliptical; the extreme points, called apsides, are the perihelion, where the Earth is closest to the Sun, and the aphelion, where the Earth is farthest from the Sun. The anomalistic year is usually defined as the time between perihelion passages. Its average duration is 365.259636 days (365 d 6 h 13 min 52.6 s) (at the epoch J2011.0).
This term is sometimes erroneously used for the draconic or nodal period of lunar precession, that is the period of a complete revolution of the Moon's ascending node around the ecliptic: Julian years ( days; at the epoch J2000.0).
The TT subscript indicates that for this formula, the Julian date should use the Terrestrial Time scale, or its predecessor, ephemeris time.
Numerical value of year variation
Mean year lengths in this section are calculated for 2000, and differences in year lengths, compared to 2000, are given for past and future years. In the tables a day is SI seconds long.
+ Mean year lengths for 2000 ! Type of year !! Days !! Hours !! Minutes !! Seconds |
45 |
10 |
53 |
55 |
+ Year length difference from 2000 (seconds; positive when length for tabulated year is greater than length in 2000) ! Year !! Tropical !! Sidereal !! Anomalistic !! Eclipse |
−174 |
−116 |
−57 |
0 |
54 |
104 |
Draconic, also called eclipse |
Lunar |
Solar days: vague, and a common year in many |
Tropical, also called solar, averaged and then rounded for epoch J2000.0 |
Gregorian, solar days averaged over the 400-year cycle |
Julian, solar days averaged over the four-year cycle |
Sidereal, for epoch J2000.0 |
Anomalistic, averaged and then rounded for epoch J2011.0 |
Leap year in many |
An average Gregorian year may be said to be 365.2425 (52.1775 , and if an hour is defined as one twenty-fourth of a day, , or ). Note however that in absolute time the average Gregorian year is not adequately defined unless the period of the averaging (start and end dates) is stated, because each period of 400 years is longer (by more than 1000 seconds) than the preceding one as the rotation of the Earth slows. In this calendar, a common year is 365 days ( hours, minutes or seconds), and a leap year is 366 days ( hours, minutes or seconds). The 400-year civil cycle of the Gregorian calendar has days and hence exactly weeks.
1 a = seconds (approximately )
They chose a value close to the length of tropical year for the epoch 2000.0 (which is roughly the length of the tropical year 2000; the length of the tropical year is slowly decreasing). However, the definition is as a multiple of the second, the SI base unit of time, and independent of astronomical definitions, since "definitions of the annus that are based on an intermediate relationship via the day, such as the Julian and Gregorian year, bear an inherent, pre-programmed obsolescence because of the variability of Earth's orbital movement". It differs from the Julian year of 365.25 days (3.1557600 × 107 s) by about 21 parts per million.
As of April 2025, the IUPAC Green Book (4th edition) provides a definition of the year as a = seconds.
In English, the abbreviations "y" or "yr" are more commonly used in non-scientific literature. In some Earth sciences branches (geology and paleontology), "kyr, myr, byr" (thousands, millions, and billions of years, respectively) and similar abbreviations are used to denote intervals of time remote from the present. In astronomy the abbreviations kyr, Myr and Gyr are in common use for kiloyears, megayears and gigayears.
The Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM) disambiguates the varying symbologies of ISO 1000, ISO 2955 and ANSI X3.50 by using:
Since 1989, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) recognizes the symbol "a" rather than "yr" for a year, notes the different kinds of year, and recommends adopting the Julian year of 365.25 days, unless otherwise specified (IAU Style Manual).G.A. Wilkins, Comm. 5, "IAU Style Manual", IAU Transactions XXB (1989), [3] .
Since 1987, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) notes "a" as the general symbol for the time unit year (IUPAP Red Book
Since 1993, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Green Book also uses the same symbol "a", notes the difference between Gregorian year and Julian year, and adopts the former (a = days),E.R. Cohen, T. Cvitas, J.G. Frey, B. Holmström, K. Kuchitsu, R. Marquardt, I. Mills, F. Pavese, M. Quack, J. Stohner, H.L. Strauss, M. Takami, and A.J. Thor, Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry, IUPAC Green Book, Third Edition, Second Printing, IUPAC & RSC Publishing, Cambridge (2008) [4] also noted in the IUPAC Gold Book.
In 2011, a task group of IUPAC and IUGS recommended the use of a as the symbol for the annus (along with multiples such as Ma) for both time intervals and absolute ages. This proved controversial as it conflicts with an earlier convention among geoscientists to use "a" specifically for absolute age before the present (e.g. 1 Ma for 1 million years ago), and "y" or "yr" (and My, Myr etc) for a time interval or period of time.
+Units of time with SI prefixes !width=120pt | Symbol!!Definition!!Common scientific uses and notes |
Geology, paleontology, and archaeology for the Holocene and Pleistocene periods, where a non−radiocarbon dating technique such as ice core dating, dendrochronology, uranium-thorium dating or varve analysis is used as the primary method for age determination. If age is determined primarily by radiocarbon dating, then the age should be expressed in either radiocarbon or calendar (calibrated) years Before Present. | |
Geology, paleontology, and celestial mechanics. In astronomical applications, the year used is the Julian year of precisely 365.25 days. In geology and paleontology, the year is not so precise and varies depending on the author. | |
Cosmology and geology. For example, the formation of the Earth occurred approximately 4.54 Ga (4.54 billion years) ago and the age of the universe is approximately 13.8 Ga. | |
An extremely long unit of time, about 70 times as long as the age of the universe. It is the same order of magnitude as the expected life span of a small red dwarf. | |
The half-life of the nuclide cadmium-113 is about 8 Pa. This symbol coincides with that for the pascal without a multiplier prefix, but context will normally be sufficient to distinguish long time periods from pressure values. | |
The half-life of tungsten-180 is 1.8 Ea. |
These abbreviations include:
| Around 200 kya Around 60 kya Around 20 kya Around 10 kya |
0.78 mya 0.13 mya 0.01 mya | |
2 bya 4.5 bya 13.8 bya |
Use of "mya" and "bya" is deprecated in modern geophysics, the recommended usage being "Ma" and "Ga" for dates Before Present, but "m.y." for the durations of epochs. This ad hoc distinction between "absolute" time and time intervals is somewhat controversial amongst members of the Geological Society of America.
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