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NASA's Spirit Rover Crew Are 'Slaves To Mars'

Posted by timothy on from the absolute-mars-corrupts-absolutely dept.

Quirk writes "The Telegraph has a bit on the challenge faced by the 280 team members who have had to leave Earth time behind and attune their circadian clock to the Mars solar day or 'sol'. '...the team's wake-up times and meal times two weeks after the landing will have shifted by nine hours.'"

2 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Damn Lag! by p2sam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This always confuses me. The Earth is about 8 light seconds away from the Sun (don't they call it 1 AU or something?) I'd guess that distance between Earth and Mars is less than 10 AU. Therefore shouldn't the round trip time between Mars and Earth be less than 10 * 8 seconds * 2 == 160 seconds 3 minutes?

  2. Definitions, people... by Transcendent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    have had to leave Earth time behind and attune their circadian clock to the Mars solar day or 'sol'

    Now why in gods name did they name the martian day AND the Sun the same damn thing?