Calendar darien

The calendar darien is a system of calculation of time conceived to serve the needs for possible colonists on planet for Mars. The calendar was created in 1985 by an aerospace engineer and specialist in political sciences named Thomas Gangale, which gave the name of his/her Darius son to the calendar.

Length and intercalation of year

Elementary divisions of the calendar are the solar day Martian (also called a “ground”) and the year vernal equinox Martian, who differs slightly from the Tropical year. The “ground” counts 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds in more than the terrestrial solar day and the year vernal equinox Martian counts 668.5907 grounds. The elementary formula of intercalation thus divides each Martian decade in six 669 days years solar Martians and four 668 days years solar Martians. The first (always called leap years although they are more frequent than the nonbissextile years) are years which are either odd (nondivisible by 2), or divisible by 10. The year is divided of 24 Mois. The first 5 months of each quarter count 28 grounds. The last month counts only 27 grounds unless it is last the one leap year month when the ground bissextile is the last ground.

Design of calendar

The calendar maintains a Semaine of seven grounds, but the week starts again starting from its first ground at the beginning of each month (i.e.: the last ground of the week is removed at the end of each month of 27-grounds). With share for its advantages of an organisational nature, this system is also justified since it approaches the average length of the Martian week average length of the terrestrial week.

The Martian year is regarded as beginner at the time of the equinox marking the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere of planet. Currently, Mars has an inclination axial similar to that of the Ground, with the result that the Martian seasons are perceptible, although the greatest eccentricity of the orbit of Mars around the Sun compared with that of the Earth means that their importance is strongly amplified in a hemisphere and is weakened in the other. Calculations of the calendar darien the most sophisticated take even account of the unimportant prolongation of the Martian year equinox vernal on several thousands of years. Those impose a more complicated intercalated formula.

In the following table, the days of the week are Sol Solis, Sol Lunae, Sol Martius, Sol Mercurii, Sol Jovis, Sol Veneris, Sol Saturni.

The last day of vrishika is one intercalary day which does not occur in each year.

Beginning of the year

Certain details of the calendar darien were the subject of controversies. Most important of these controversies the definition of the Martian era concerned. Initially, the end of the year 1975 was selected like beginning according to the American program of the Viking, the first space probe which was posed successfully over Mars. This choice was quickly regarded as extremely restricted and, moreover, had as result that the multiple telescopic observations of Mars during the 400 last years were relegated to negative dates. The era to which a preference is currently granted is that initially suggested by Peter Kokh and who begins in 1609, when, while being based on the observations of Mars of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler elucidated the laws on the movement of planets, like that from the first observation from Mars with a Télescope by Galileo Galilei.

Disputed points

The nomenclature also was the subject of arguments, although with less bitterness. The 24 months names which were temporarily selected by Gangale were the names Latin S of the Constellation S of the Zodiaque and their equivalents Sanscrit S used alternatively. In the same way, 7 the one week old grounds were temporarily named after the Sun, the the Moon and the 5 most brilliant planets seen since Mars, including the Earth. The choice of these names was also criticized like a restricted choice. Lastly, several different calendars designed in the same way but with a different nomenclature were proposed. The calendar darien “defrost”, for example, creates new names for the months Martians starting from models drawing up a relationship between the choice of the characters and length of the name and the order of the month and the season. The calendar utopien, invented in 2001 by the “Mars Time Group”, still contains other suggestions for the modification of the nomenclature.

Other Dariens calendars

In 1998, Gangale adapted the calendar darien to be used on the the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo in 1610: Io, Europe, Ganymède, and Callisto.

In 2003, it created an alternative of the calendar for Titan.

External bonds

the calendars Martians

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