Mars fans should have their New Year’s champagne ready in 2022 a little early.
new year Mars According to NASA, what started today (December 26) was patience rover Deposit to set a milestone on Mars Two caches of materials This will be used on future sample return missions.
‘No, we’re not celebrating early by mistake,’ says NASA Mars A Twitter account joked, (opens in new tab) Refers to the Gregorian calendar that most of the world follows. The new year for that system clicks on January 1st as usual (although your tradition may have a different new year).
NASA and several other space agencies are roaming the surface of Mars in search of signs of ancient life, culminating in a joint NASA-European sample recovery mission capable of carrying regolith in the 2030s.
Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover’s first year on Mars
The first Mars flyby was Mariner 4 For the Martian New Year, which is July 14, 1965, scientists start counting from 1955, when Mars reached its northern vernal equinox.
“Counting the years on Mars will help scientists track long-term observations, such as weather data collected over decades by NASA spacecraft,” they added.
Since Mars is far from the Sun, earthit takes the Red Planet about twice as long to orbit our Sun. We hadn’t even landed yet.
The car-sized rover landed on February 18, 2021, about 11 days after the last Martian New Year was celebrated.besides leaving lightsaber cache On the surface of the planet, a companion helicopter called Ingenuity is already Complete 37 flights Hope to fly again soon.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author ofwhy am i tall (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022, co-authored with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter. @Howell Space (opens in new tab)Follow us on Twitter @space.com (opens in new tab) Also Facebook (opens in new tab).