Philip P. Ide

Author, programmer, science enthusiast, half-wit.
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blog:articles:info:mars_clock

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Real-time Martian Clock

I had a momentary lapse last night - or was it inspiration? Anyway, I've added a real-time clock that shows the current time on Mars using the Martian clock (the seconds are a bit longer) for the location of the InSight lander.

The lander is situated in the south-west corner of Elysium Planitia, and very handily, it's on a nice longitude. You can view the clock on this page. [edit: there are now 3 clocks, one each for the prime meridian, InSight's location and mission time]

Although the Martian day (a sol) is 24hrs 39mins 53secs, clocks on Mars are adjusted to a 24hr day. To make this happen, Martian seconds are longer by about 0.0275 secs. This is done purely out of convenience.

Writing the clock was an interesting exercise. I had to calculate the current Martian year, month and sol, so I put those on the clock as well. If you compare the clock with other online calculators and see differences, remember they are probably calculating the time at the prime meridian.

Below the clock in the Current Location of Mars section, you'll see the current season has been calculated too. The start and end dates of the season are approximated, but they'll act as a rough guide.

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blog/articles/info/mars_clock.1559426224.txt.gz ยท Last modified: 2019/06/01 21:57 by Phil Ide

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