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It is approximately 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds long. A Martian year is approximately 668.6 sols, equivalent to approximately 687 Earth days [1] or 1.88 Earth years. The sol was adopted in 1976 during the Viking Lander missions and is a measure of time mainly used by NASA when, for example, scheduling the use of a Mars rover. [2] [3]
The corresponding values for Earth are currently 23 h 56 m 4.0916 s and 24 h 00 m 00.002 s, respectively, which yields a conversion factor of 1.027 491 2517 Earth days/sol: thus, Mars's solar day is only about 2.75% longer than Earth's; approximately 73 sols pass for every 75 Earth days.
The basic time periods from which the calendar is constructed are the Martian solar day (sometimes called a sol) and the Martian vernal equinox year.The sol is 39 minutes 35.244 seconds longer than the Terrestrial solar day, and the Martian vernal equinox year is 668.5907 sols in length (which corresponds to 686.9711 days on Earth).
The calculation takes into account that a Mars Sol is a few dozen minutes longer than an Earth day. NASA and secondary sources provide Sol numbers, but do not always give a UTC time or any Earth time zone for the events on Mars. NASA provides photographs from the events with a timestamp in local Mars time that facilitates the calculation. See here.
If the second set of parameters is not included it will automatically calculate the days between a given date and today. It is based on the product of the count of Earth days past and the ratio of the length of Earth's solar day length (86400 seconds) with a Mars solar day (88775.24409 seconds), rounded to the nearest sol.
While astronomers say it’s not a “perihelic opposition,” which happens every 15-17 years and only occurs when Mars is at its closest to Earth while also reaching the closest point to the sun ...
While observing Mars, look to the east, and remember to also take a look at Jupiter and Saturn, easily visible in the southwestern sky. Mars hasn’t been this close to Earth in 15 years — here ...
An increase of 360° in the ERA is a full rotation of the Earth. A sidereal day on Earth is approximately 86164.0905 seconds (23 h 56 min 4.0905 s or 23.9344696 h). (Seconds are defined as per International System of Units and are not to be confused with ephemeris seconds.)