intended as approximating the number of days in a solar year). The correction due to the division by the square root of reflects the fact that the Earth-Moon system is not orbiting the Sun itself, but the center of mass of the system.

Isaac Newton himself determined a value of this constant which agreed with Gauss's value to six significant digits.Gauss (1809) gave the value with nine significant digits, as 3548.18761 arc seconds.