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Happy New Year! Sure March at least.
Yesterday (February 7) marked start of a new year on the red planet. While a year on Earth lasts 365 days, each year on Mars lasts 668 grounds (days on Mars) – or 687 days on Earth, because each ground lasts a little longer than an Earth day at 24 hours and 39 minutes. Because the red planet takes almost twice as long to orbit the sun as the Earth, on Mars you will celebrate your birthday every 23 Earth months.
It is now “Mars Year 36” on Mars as tracked by humans on Earth. “March Year 1” began after a major dust storm was detected in 1956, called “the great dust storm of 1956.” To calculate your age on Mars, you can divide your age by 1.88 (but beware: traveling to Mars would not make you younger).
The Martian New Year begins as three different missions approach the Red Planet. The UAE’s Hope orbiter is expected to arrive in orbit around Mars on Tuesday, February 9. A day later, the Chinese mission Tianwen-1 is also expected to enter orbit. Tianwen-1 carries three different probes: an orbiter, a lander and a small rover. Then on February 18, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover will perform a daring landing via a parachute and celestial crane in an area known as the Jezero Crater. So it’s going to be a busy year on the Red Planet.
Related: How long does it take to get to Mars
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Mars has four seasons like we do on Earth, with cooler winters and hotter summers. The Martian year always begins with the northern hemisphere’s spring equinox, which begins with autumn in the southern hemisphere.
However, unlike on Earth, the seasons of Mars are not all the same length. This inequality is due to the fact that the orbit of the red planet around the sun is a more extreme elliptical shape than that of the Earth. The season we are entering now, spring in the northern hemisphere of Mars, is the longest season on the planet, at 194 sols.
Unlike Earth, Mars experiences much more extreme temperatures. The annual average temperature of the planet is minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 degrees Celsius).
In addition, during the Martian spring and summer in the southern hemisphere of the planet, the Elongated Cloud of Arsia Mons, a strange weather phenomenon that is essentially a giant ice crystal cloud stretching for 1,800 kilometers can occur. form and last more than 80 floors.
Due to the planet’s more elliptical orbit, the Martian seasons can also bring a variety of weird effects. For example, in spring and summer in the southern hemisphere of the planet, Mars is closer to the sun and moves faster. Proximity to the sun warms the planet’s atmosphere, and the increased heat and increased speeds of the planet spinning so close to the sun stir up particles in Martian soil, which can lead to intense dust storms that can s ‘spread across the globe.
In fact, in 2019, NASA’s Opportunity rover “died” after a global dust storm blanketed the craft’s solar panels, preventing its batteries from charging and causing it to lose contact with crews. mission to Earth.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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