If so, what is the name of the interval required for the stars to complete one circle of Polaris? --rwg
This sounds like an unambiguous question, but it isn't because of a couple of complicating factors. First, the stars don't exactly circle polaris, or any other fixed point. They circle a point that circles the zodiacal pole every 25752 years. In 10k years, the pole star will be Vega. This 25752 number takes into account both the precession of the pole (25784 years) and the slower precession of earth's orbit. Thus the sidereal day, is (today) about 86164.09 seconds whereas the period of rotation of the earth with respect to the fixed stars is more like 86164.10 seconds. I say "today" because they both slows down with time, somewhat unpredictably, by about 2.5 milliseconds a century.