can be seen to be since the near and far points are aligned with the gravitational attraction, so there is no torque due to the difference in gravitational attraction. Although the above explanation involved the Sun, the same explanation holds true for any object moving around the Earth, along or close to the ecliptic, notably, the Moon. The combined action of the Sun and the Moon is called the lunisolar precession. In addition to the steady progressive motion (resulting in a full circle in about 25,700 years) the Sun and Moon also cause small periodic variations, due to their changing positions. These oscillations, in both precessional speed and axial tilt, are known as the nutation. The most important term has a period of 18.6 years and an amplitude of 9.2 arcseconds. In addition to lunisolar precession, the actions of the other planets of the Solar System cause the whole ecliptic to rotate slowly around an axis which has an ecliptic longitude of about 174° measured on the instantaneous ecliptic. This so-called planetary precession shift amounts to a rotation of the ecliptic plane of 0.47 seconds of arc per year (more than a hundred times smaller than lunisolar precession). The sum of the two precessions is known as the general precession. Equations The tidal force on Earth due to a perturbing body (Sun, Moon or planet) is expressed by Newton's law of universal gravitation, whereby the gravitational force of the perturbing body on the side of Earth nearest is said to be greater than the gravitational force on the far side by an amount proportional to the difference in the cubes of the distances between the near and far sides. If the gravitational force of the perturbing body acting on the mass of the Earth as a point mass at the center of Earth (which provides the centripetal force causing the orbital motion) is subtracted from the gravitational force of the perturbing body everywhere on the surface of Earth, what remains may be regarded as the tidal force. This gives the paradoxical notion of a force acting away from the satellite but in reality it is simply a lesser force toward that body due to the gradient in the gravitational field. For precession, this tidal force can be grouped into two forces which only act on the equatorial bulge outside of a mean spherical radius. This couple can be decomposed into