It Takes Almost Two of Our Years for Christmas to Come Around Over on Mars

Most of us space enthusiasts are rooting for a permanent presence, of course, and some are even thinking of going there once Elon Musk opens the floodgates with his Starship.

But that’s the romantic side of us, the one that doesn’t take into account the fact that alien planet pioneers will be, for as long as it takes for an off-world civilization to really take off, nothing more glorified farmers in spacesuits, growing potatoes on the red surface of Mars.

And they’ll have a lot of adjusting to do before even that happens, because Mars is not an easy place to live on, given how it’s utterly dead and all. And one of the many adjustments they’ll have to make concerns the amount of time that needs to pass for Christmas to come around once more. Or to celebrate one's birthday.

You see, for a long time we humans have defined a year as being the period of time our planet needs to make a full orbit around the Sun. Moving at 67,000 mph (108,000 kph), it takes 365 days, give or take, to do that.

But Mars is further out, hence its orbit is larger, and it spins around that ball of fire a tad slower, at close to 54,000 mph (87,000 kph). It thus takes it 687 of our days to complete a revolution, which is close to two years between Christmases!

The longer Martian year also means longer seasons, especially winters, tons of shorter days, and a host of all other problems potato farmers will have to overcome.

It’s true, they can’t do much to speed the planet up or shorten its orbit, but they can sure follow Earth’s calendar. Or they could come up with one of their own, which has Christmases every day.