2 Minute performance

Suppose the annual cycle of Mercury (87.959 mean earth days) is compressed to one second of performance time. Then the performance times of the six planetary cycles are:
  • Mercury, 1 second
  • Venus, 2.555 secs
  • Earth, 4.153 secs
  • Mars, 7.810 secs
  • Jupiter, 49.257 secs
  • Saturn, 122.321 secs
Thus in a two-minute performance, Mercury completes exactly 120 cycles, while Saturn ends up less than 2 performance seconds (about 6 degrees of its 360 degree cycle) short of one full cycle.

Similarly, in a 123 second performance, Mercury returns exactly to its perihelion while Saturn ends up about two degrees past its perihelion.

Handy Table of Durations

Merc Yrs Earth Days Earth Yrs
122 10,731 29.38 (1)
123 10,819 29.62
124 10,907 29.86
125 10,995 30.10 (2)
126 11,083 30.34
127 11,171 30.58

Notes

(1) 122 Merc Yrs is very close to one Saturn Year, 10,759 Earth Days
(2) 125 Merc Yrs is the basis for Version 5 of our animation (1.02 Saturn Years).
Revised 02 jan 2003 by ralph abraham