DiscoProJoe1

Well, I just can't stop thinking about this time stuff. Here's a bit more that I conjured up:

When the first settlers land on Mars for the purpose of permanent residence, they can establish that date as the first Martian day of the first Martian year. Each month would have approximately 55-to-56 Martian days. (If Mars' orbit around the sun is more elliptical than Earth's, then some months would need to have significantly more days than others.)

The designated length of a Martian second would be about 2.8% longer than an Earth second, so that each Martian day could be exactly 24 hours, 0 seconds, under this local timekeeping system. It would be one day-length different from Earth about every 36 days.

If they land within a short interval of time before the northern solstice on Mars occurs, then their arrival date would be called June 1st, 1. The northern solstice would happen sometime in June, the southbound equinox in September, the southern solstice sometime in December, and the northbound equinox would happen in March. The final day of the year (i.e., Martian New Year's Eve) would be something like May 56th. The next day would be June 1st, 2.

Now, instead, if the pioneers first arrive on Mars about halfway between the time of the southbound equinox and the southern solstice, then they could call that date November 1st, 1, which would be the first day of the year, instead. The solstices would still occur in December and June, the equinoxes would still be in March and September, but in this case, the Martian New Year's Eve would take place on October 56th, or so. The next day would be November 1st, 2.

Whatever longitude the first permanent settlers land at would be deemed the prime meridian, and the 24 Martian time zones would flow from there.

So that's what I thought of about how "local time" on Mars will work. Fun to ponder.

However, this kind of local calendar system won't be very practical on Pluto, since each month would need to have about 7,000 days. (ha)

Same for any exoplanet that orbits its dwarf star every 15 days...as each calendar month would just have 1 or 2 days.

So an alternate calendar scheme would need to be devised for cases like these.

Also, 24 hours for a solar day won't be very practical if the planet (or moon) rotates very slowly, such as Venus, Titan, or the earth's moon. And especially not so if it's tidally locked to its star, which Proxima Centauri B might be.

So the experts would have to figure out an hourly time frame that could work for these worlds, as well.

Just my thoughts.

Some further ponderings about timekeeping in the future:

The "universal time" that everyone in the galaxy would use in common (like a temporal lingua franca) might initially be the same as "Earth time."

However, as more people move away from Earth, and as Earth's intelligent-being population becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the galaxy's, then eventually, most non-Earthlings will start demanding a Universal Time that's simple, is permanently consistent with an unchanging algorithm, and that isn't dependent on what happens to Earth.

What if colonists live 1,000 light years from Earth, and the Earthlings decide to quickly implement changes to their Gregorian calendar in the year 3600? The distant colonists would have to wait 1,000 years until getting the update.

Or, what if a small asteroid hits the earth (that the Earthlings can't or won't stop), and it abruptly slows Earth's rotation by 5 seconds per day? The Earthlings would have to immediately implement radical changes to their timing algorithms (and calendar) in order to cope with it, even though it shouldn't directly affect the rest of the solar system or galaxy.

So, perhaps this agreed-upon Universal Time -- decoupled from Earth Time -- would always have exactly 360 days per year, exactly 30 days per month, and its definition of "one second" would be permanently set in stone, and would never be modified.

If this kind of Universal Time were established...say...in the year 3600, then every date in the history books would also have to be changed retroactively to fit the 360-days-per-year calendar, as well. So, for example, the founding of the United States might be listed as both July 4th, 1776 CE-Earth, and then maybe also as something like February 30th, 1745 CE-Universe.

(The narrator in this episode could then insert a joke about reluctant people who've said, "I'll do it on February 30th!" to give the audience a little chuckle.)

Oh well...take this episode suggestion for what it's worth....

Episode suggestion: Timekeeping in the future

I've been searching the web for articles and videos about this, but can't seem to find anything relevant. Recently I've been wondering how people on Earth, people living on the Moon, Mars, Titan, Proxima Centauri B, various space colonies, etc., will keep time in terms of clocks, calendars, and years.

How will one second be defined by each colony? How many hours per day? Days per year? How long will "one year" be defined?

Will each colony throughout the galaxy have their own local timekeeping system (and thus...local time and date) , plus a "universal" one that everyone in the galaxy uses to keep everything synched up?

Obviously, every local timekeeping system will constantly have to be modified, due to slight changes in the planet's (or moon's) rotation speed -- affecting the length of the solar day. On Earth, for example, our own definition of 1 second is constantly being changed, in order to maintain the designation of "24 hours, 0 seconds" as the length of day. And after hundreds of years, this tiny difference will add up, and will begin to creep into the calendar...necessitating the omission of calendar days in order to keep the March equinox occurring on March 20th (plus or minus one day).

On Mars, one solar day is about 24 hours, 40 minutes. So future Martians locally will define "one second" differently than Earthlings, so that a day on Mars comes out to exactly "24 hours, 0 seconds" in their timekeeping system. (On the calendar, this would amount to a one-day difference from Earth's every 36 days.)

So the Martian calendar would have to be a lot different, not to mention the fact that a Martian year is about two Earth years.

On Titan, a solar day is about 16 Earth days, and about 28 Earth days on the Moon. So those colonies' local timekeeping systems would be quite interesting, as well.

And how about space colonies that are just floating in space and orbiting the sun (or another star)...that never, ever have any nighttime? How would they keep time?

Anyway, I think "Timekeeping in the Future" would be an awesome episode.