Happy New Year , Mars ! February 7 was the thirty-sixth Martian New Year since we officially started count how much time passes on the Red Planet . But time does n’t pass the same there as it does on Earth . To observe the new year , theEuropean Space Agencytook this occasion to portion out the similarity and difference between timekeeping on Earth and on Mars .
First of all , let ’s think the solar day . On Earth , we picked our whole of measurements to be 24 hours and define this as the time that take the Sun to come in back to the highest point in the sky , depending on your position . Variations to this menses can vary to up to 7.9 minute , give or take .
On Mars , things are a bit slower but amazingly standardized to Earth . A Martian solar Clarence Day , or ‘ sol ’ , is 24 hours , 39 minute , and 35 second long . A lot of charge to Mars , like NASA ’s Curiosity bird of passage , number their timeworking on the Red Planet in colloidal solution , rather than on Earth days .
However , a Martian twelvemonth is 668 sols or about 687 Earth days , 1.8 times longer than a year on Earth . If you want to mould out what your age would be if you were presently residing on Mars , it ’s easy . Take your age today and divide it by 1.88 . So , if you are 38 on Earth , you ’re only just entering your twenties on Mars ( did the number of volunteers to protrude the first colonization on Mars just go up ? ) . More hour in a day and being ( nominally ) vernal sounds like a organisation to implement here .
So why have there only been 36 Martian years so far , when Mars is clearly billions of year old ?
The retort only lead off back in the Earth class 1955 after a huge dust tempest on Mars , a distinctive feature of the southern summertime ( more on the season in a minute ) . To keep thing organise the year was check to the spring equinox , and our counter with " twelvemonth one " start onApril 11 , 1955 . The storm became known as " the bang-up dust tempest of 1956 " .
So far , daily and yearly timekeeping on Mars is fairly straightforward . certain , somewhat longer than on Earth but not intrinsically different , which would make keeping in touch with your loved one relatively easy . But the Martian seasons are profoundly different . On Earth , the seasons are only due to the satellite ’s tilt . As our satellite go around the Sun , one hemisphere gets more light , and six calendar month subsequently things are the opposite .
Mars has a tilt of 25 degree , close to Earth ’s 23.5 degrees , but the seasons are not as straightforward . There is an important interplay with the shape of the compass , get certain seasons to be longer than the others . Mars ’s sphere is not almost circular like Earth ’s , it ’s a bit more squished , so the northern hemisphere ’s spring live on longer than the northern hemisphere ’s autumn ( 192 sols compared to 142 sols ) .
Shorter southerly summertime and fountain are not just curiosity , they have a world impact . As the planet is much closer to the Sun during this period , the increase luminosity allows for the organization of more turbulence in the atmosphere . For this reasonableness , detritus tempest are a typical feature of these seasons , sometimes covering the whole planet . NASA ’s Opportunityrover die because of one of these storm . However , you ’ll be proud of to know the debris storm that leaves Mark Watney strand on the Red Planet inThe Martianwould not really look like that .
The next Martian New Year will start on December 26 , 2022 , so you better get your celebrations in now before you jump complaining that year 36 feel almost as long as Earth ’s 2020 .
