Now that humanity has a good chance of sending humans to Mars, now is a good time to reflect on the types of lifestyle challenges that the Red Planet poses. Time itself, for example, will have to change significantly. As this new video from YouTube channel RealLifeLore explains, people will have to rethink what a “year” or “day” means to them. (Kind of like what happened in 2020.)
RealLifeLore has produced numerous similar statements, covering everything from how big the Pacific is to what Earth will look like in the event of catastrophic climate change. (Spoiler alert: like Tatooine.)
In this explanation, the channel notes that tracking time on Mars is similar to, but also “very different” from tracking time here on Earth. Essentially, that’s because the Earth and Mars take different amounts of time to orbit the sun. Likewise, while they both spin on their axis, they do so at different speeds.
RealLifeLore
These changes mean that the day of Mars (or Sol) is slightly longer than that of Earth, namely 24 hours and 37 minutes. Mars year is much longer, namely 687 Earth days. However, a “second” is the same on both planets; a second defined as a certain number of radiation cycles from a cesium-133 atom, which remains unchanged throughout the universe. But in the end they still need different senses of how long a “day” or “year” is.
RealLifeLore
In addition to developing a new sense of the length of days or years, settlers also need a new calendar. For this, RealLifeLore notes that the Space Science Institute has already established one. The Institute for Mars calendar begins here on Earth on April 11, 1955; that make day January 1 of the first year of Mars. Which would mean that if we celebrate New Year’s Eve 2021 on Earth, Mars is still finishing its 35th calendar month. This is confusing until you remember that the “years” of Mars are much longer. And, as Einstein famously said, that time is just a “stubbornly persistent” illusion.
RealLifeLore