Julian Years to Hours (a to h)

1 Julian year equals 8,766 hours exactly.

1 Julian year = 8,766 hours

How to convert Julian years to hours

To convert Julian years to hours, multiply the number of Julian years by 8,766. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply hours by 0.0001140771161 (rounded).

hours = Julian years × 8,766

Example: 10 Julian years = 87,660 hours.

Months and years are not constant. This site uses the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days, so one 'year' converts to 365.2425 days, not 365; use 'common year' for exactly 365 days.

About these units

Julian Year (a)

AstronomicalCurrent unit

Exactly 365.25 days (31,557,600 seconds). The astronomical standard; a light-year is defined using it.

Astronomers wanted a year that would never change, so they borrowed the average length of the old Julian calendar year: exactly 365.25 days of 86,400 SI seconds, or 31,557,600 seconds. The symbol is a, or aj when it must be told apart from other years. It is not an SI unit, but the IAU lists it among the non-SI units accepted for use in astronomy.

The mean tropical year drifts slightly from one year to the next, so it makes a poor unit, whereas the Julian year is constant because it rests on the SI second. It still approximates both the sidereal and tropical years to within about 0.008 days. The current standard epoch, J2000.0, is exactly 12:00 TT on 1 January 2000, and other Julian epochs are counted in Julian years from it. The light-year is defined as the distance light covers in one Julian year.

1 Julian year = 31,557,600 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Julian year (astronomy); Wikipedia: Light-second; NIST SP 811 Appendix B.8: factors for units outside the SI

Hour (h)

Metric (SI)Current unit

60 minutes or 3,600 seconds, one twenty-fourth of a mean solar day.

Egyptian astronomers gave us the twelve. Coffin lids from about 2150 BC show the night divided into exactly 12 intervals, tied to the rising of star groups called decans, and the day was later split into 12 hours with sundials. These were seasonal hours, a twelfth of the daylight, so a summer hour was longer than a winter one. The word itself comes from Greek hora, originally any span of time, through Latin and Old French into English in the 13th century.

Equal hours of 1/24 of a day were probably first proposed by Hipparchus, and mechanical clocks made them the practical choice, since a clock showing seasonal hours had to be readjusted every morning and evening. Today the hour is exactly 3,600 seconds and is a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI. Civil time still bends it a little: UTC hours have lasted 3,601 seconds 27 times since 1972 to keep clocks within 0.9 seconds of the Earth's rotation. In practice we use it for working shifts, travel times and electricity bills measured in kilowatt-hours.

1 hour = 3,600 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hour; BIPM: SI Brochure, 9th edition

Related conversions

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