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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
