The unexpected longevity of Spirit and Opportunity is giving the space agency a chance to field-test on Mars some new capabilities useful both to these missions and future rovers. Spirit will begin its fourth year on Mars on Jan. 3 (PST); Opportunity on Jan. 24. In addition to their continuing scientific observations, they are now testing four new skills included in revised flight software uploaded to their onboard computers.
Well, the Mars Exploration Rovers team have adopted a 24-"hour" Martian clock. They divide each sol into 24 Martian hours. They did this because the Martian hours are only slightly longer than Earth hours. There's a Java program that'll tell you the current Mars time I think. A normal one to tell them the current time in southern California, and a specially-designed Mars watch to tell them the time on Mars. They're actually living on Mars time to maximize use of the rovers.
The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on planets other than Earth (e.g. Mars).[1] An Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours. A Martian solar day, or "sol day ", is 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds
Okay a little math.
In Minutes:
39 x 24 = 936 = one sol day
936 x 365 = 341640 a year
So this is the extra amount of minutes Mars has added up over one Earth years time = 341640
X that by 3 earth years = 1024920
Devided by 60 = 17082 hours
Devide by 24 = 711,75 days
Devide by 365 = 1.9 years
The extra 341640 Mars minutes over a three year Earth pirod = 1.9 years
So there are 4.9 Mars years in 3 Earth years.
Hmmm , 4.9 Mars years are equivalent to 3 Earth years ?
Bah , Okay I messed up. That cant be right. I’ll bet Moosey can figure this out with those calculus classes he’s been soaking up
Edit:
I c where I messed up ,
39 minutes x 365 days = 14235
14235 minutes x 3 years = 42705
divide by 60 = 711.75 hours
divide by 24 = 29.65 days
so there’s an extra 29.65 Martian sol days in three earth years
.
Last edited by Falker on 27 Jan 2007, 07:26, edited 4 times in total.
While browsing a "Sharper Image" store several years ago, I happened upon a display which touted "The World's Most Accurate Wristwatch". A few moments later, a salesman asked me if I had any questions.
"Are these the most accurate wristwatches in the world?", I asked.
"Yes, they are.", he replied, confidently.
"Then why are these two watches here in this case twenty seconds off from each other?"
He was completely stumped! I've never seen a salseman so utterly at a loss for words! I just kept looking at him, quietly awaiting his reply, as I savored the moment.
I just kept thinking of one of my favorite fortune cookie lines: A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two never does.
