Length of day facts for kids
The length of the day tells us how long it takes for a planet to spin around once. On our home planet, Earth, one day lasts about 24 hours. But did you know that days on other planets can be much shorter or much, much longer?
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How Long is a Day on Other Planets?
The length of a day on other planets is measured using Earth time. This helps us compare them easily.
- Mercury - about 60 Earth days
- Venus - 243 Earth days
- Earth - 1 Earth day
- Mars - about 1 Earth day and 0.6 hours (a little over 24 hours)
- Jupiter - 9 hours
- Saturn - about 10 hours
- Uranus - about 13 hours
- Neptune - about 15 hours
Why Earth's Day is Getting Longer
The Earth's day is slowly getting longer over millions of years. This happens because of something called tidal acceleration. It is caused by the push and pull of the Moon on Earth.
What is Tidal Acceleration?
Tidal acceleration is like a very slow brake on Earth's spin. The Moon's gravity creates tides in our oceans. As the Earth spins, these tides drag a little behind the Moon. This dragging creates friction, which slows down Earth's rotation.
Over a long time, this tiny slowdown adds up. About 100 years ago, a day was about 1.7 milliseconds shorter than it is today. If we go back about 620 million years, a day on Earth was only about 21.9 hours long!
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Images for kids
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Sunrise in Brisbane Water National Park, Australia
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Earth daylight on the June solstice
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Earth daylight on the December solstice
