This week it's equinox on Mars, when its northern hemisphere enters fall and its southern hemisphere begins spring. Here's how to understand seasons on Mars, how it's similar—and different—to Earth, and why it matters to NASA, ESA, JAXA and anyone else hoping to send a spacecraft to the "red planet."
Here are the "Earthly" dates for the upcoming equinoxes and solstices in the next Martian year, given for its northern hemisphere:
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"We report these dates in Earth frames in our calendar year, which is not the same as reporting it on the Martian calendar year, mostly because the Martian year is twice as long as ours," said Dr. Jackie Faherty, Senior Scientist and Senior Education Manager jointly in the Department of Astrophysics and the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City . "We're placing Mars' seasonal calendar in Earth's days and dates."
Quite a lot has been going on:
What a simulated Mars mission taught me about food waste - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting
I recently spent two weeks at the Mars Desert Research Station in the US state of Utah, and experienced the intimate and challenging conditions of a Mars mission simulation. I was part of a small, isolated team of four with limited choice of food, preparation and cooking options.
I wanted to know how these conditions would affect the food waste we generated. This research is particularly pertinent now, as COVID-19 forces people into social isolation and raises the (real or imagined) risk of food scarcity.
Space: What is the Mars equinox? - CBBC Newsround
It basically means the top half of a planet (the northern hemisphere) is entering autumn, while the bottom half (the southern hemisphere) will see the start of its spring season.
Equinoxes describe the point in a year when one half of the planet (a hemisphere) switches from pointing towards or away from the Sun.
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A year is the time it takes a planet to make a circle around the Sun. A year on Earth lasts 365 days. But because Mars is further away from the Sun, it takes longer for it to go round. So, one Martian year lasts 687 Earth days!
Should we worry about Mars samples being brought back to Earth?
Quite a lot has been going on:
Wheels, Parachute Installed on Mars Perseverance Rover - SpaceRef
Wheels are installed on NASA's Mars Perseverance rover inside Kennedy Space Center's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on March 30, 2020.
The assembly, test and launch operations team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, making significant strides in preparing the agency's Mars Perseverance rover for its planned July 2020 launch.
Final assembly and testing of the rover continue at Kennedy, including the recent installation of its wheels and parachute.
100 days from launch: NASA's Mars rover Perseverance gets its wheels, parachute | Space
So NASA has been working hard recently to get Perseverance into launch shape. On March 26, for example, technicians finished installing the rover's parachute system. The chute will slow the 2,260-lb. (1,025 kilograms) Perseverance from Mach 1.7 to just 200 mph (320 km/h) in Mars' thin air on landing day, which will be Feb. 18, 2021, no matter when the mission lifts off during this summer's window.
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I’m 💯 days away from the opening of my launch period, and my team and I are continuing to persevere. We are taking things step by step, day by day to get to the launch pad. Mark July 17 on your calendars and keep checking in for updates. https://t.co/KfJ3JXDZ67 pic.twitter.com/97LBtyLOkH April 7, 2020
Radar Evidence Of Subglacial Liquid Water On Mars - Astrobiology
Radar data collected by MARSIS. (A) Radargram for MARSIS orbit 10737, whose ground track is shown in Fig. 1B. A radargram is a bi-dimensional color-coded section made of a sequence of echoes in which the horizontal axis is the distance along the ground track of the spacecraft, the vertical axis represents the two-way travel time of the echo (from a reference altitude of 25km above the reference datum), and brightness is a function of echo power.
The presence of liquid water at the base of the Martian polar caps has long been suspected but not observed. We surveyed the Planum Australe region using the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, a low-frequency radar on the Mars Express spacecraft.
Meet Hope: The UAE's first spacecraft bound for Mars is now complete | Space
If all goes smoothly this summer, three new spacecraft will launch toward the Red Planet, including the Arab world's first interplanetary probe, dubbed Hope Mars Mission .
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The Hope spacecraft, like Chinese and U.S. Mars-bound missions launching this summer , is scheduled to take advantage of the window when Earth and Mars are helpfully aligned. The schedule should ensure that Hope, which is also known as the Emirates Mars Mission, takes about eight months to reach the Red Planet.
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