On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Markus Kuhn wrote:
> Fair enough. Though it would be academically interesting to see some
> discussion of what the contributing factors are for changes in the
> length of the tropical year. For length-of-day changes, we have have
> been told about tidal breaking and other effects. Are there similar
> theories for the long-term change of the Earth's orbit (change of solar
> mass, solar wind friction, etc.)?
On the effects of solar mass loss on orbital computations and definitions
of units, and its (non-)detectability, see "Solar Mass Loss, the
Astronomical Unit, and the Scale of the Solar System" by Peter D.
Noerdlinger
<
http://web.archive.org/web/20011104125211/http://home.netcom.com/~pdnoerd/SMassLoss.html>
(I can't now locate a good copy of this paper; that archived copy is
missing images for many of the equations).
--
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28_at_cam.ac.uk
Received on Thu Jul 03 2003 - 12:04:27 PDT