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“precession”
1. The fact of going in front of something as in a line up, personal importance, etc: The precession of the guests of honour at the banquet was written out for the wait staff to understand.
2. In astronomy: the slow, conical motion of the earth's axis of rotation: Precession is caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon, and to a smaller extent, of the planets, on the equatorial bulge of the earth.
2. In astronomy: the slow, conical motion of the earth's axis of rotation: Precession is caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon, and to a smaller extent, of the planets, on the equatorial bulge of the earth.
In certain contexts, precession may refer to the precession that the Earth experiences, or the effects of this type of precession on astronomical observation, or to the precession of orbital objects.
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-cede, -ceed, -cess, -cease
(page 5)
pre-, prae-
(page 3)
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“precession”
In physics, the movement of the axis of a spinning gyro in orbit around a heavenly body which is caused by the curvature of space: Geodetic precession describes the curvature of spacetime, predicted by general relativity, on a vector carried along with an orbiting body.
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geo-, ge- +
(page 8)
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“precession”
precession
1. A slow change in the direction of the tilt of earth's axis, which results in an apparent change in the position of the stars.
2. Slow wobble of the earth on its axis, like that of a spinning top.
2. Slow wobble of the earth on its axis, like that of a spinning top.
The gravitational pulls of the sun and moon on the earth's equatorial bulge cause the earth's axis to trace out a circle on the sky every 25,800 years.
The position of the celestial poles is constantly changing because of procession, as are the positions of the equinoxes (the points at which the celestial equator intersects the sun's path around the sky).
The precession of the equinoxes means that there is a gradual westward drift in the ecliptic or the path that the sun appears to follow and in the coordinates of objects on the celestial sphere.
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Astronomy and related astronomical terms
(page 20)