DIFFERENCE OF SOLAR DAY, SIDEREAL DAY AND LUNAR DAY

Solar day, sidereal day and lunar day is in the same day, but this three days are different from each other and has a different uses.

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SOLAR DAY (follow the sun)

All of us knows Solar day, it is the ordinary 24-hours day format. Solar day is the time it takes for the earth to rotate on its axis and return the sun to the same spot it was the day before, and it lasts 24 hours before earth reach the same spot where it started.

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Solar day is the day format most commonly use by many people, because it is much easier to count and compute than the other day format.

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SIDEREAL DAY (follow the stars)

The sidereal day is the time it takes for the earth to complete a rotation on its own axis and return the fixed stars to the same spot it was before. A sidereal day lasts for 23 hours 56 minutes 4.091 seconds, so sidereal day is 4 minutes shorter than a solar day.
So the sidereal say is 4 minutes faster than usual 24 hour day format. This means that a same star appear last night will appear 4 minutes earlier every night.

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Sidereal day/time is a time system use by the astronomers use to locate celestial objects like stars/constellations and planets. by using sidereal time it is possible to easily point a telescope to the proper coordinates in the night sky.

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LUNAR DAY (follow the moon)

lunar day is the time it takes for earth to rotate on its own axis from an exact point under the moon to the same point under the moon. A
lunar day lasts for 24 hours and 50 minutes. The lunar day is 50 minutes longer than a solar day because the moon revolves around the Earth in the same direction that the Earth rotates around its axis, it takes the Earth an extra 50 minutes to catch up to the moon.

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Astronomers use solar time to measure high tide and low tide.
Because the gravity of the moon is responsible of creating the tides, astronomers use Lunar time to track the flow of the tide.

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