Timekeeping on Mars or other worlds

[Andy44]

To what extent is light level effected by latitude?

The farther away from the equator you go you never get the sun directly overhead; until at the poles it's always on the horizon. I'm not sure how that would affect plants in a greenhouse on Antarctica, since plants tend to grow towards the light.

---------- Post added at 08:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 PM ----------

As I think about this, I wonder if it would be a good idea to redefine the SI second to be a multiple of both the Martian and the Terrestrial solar days.

Mars is the only planet we may live on that has a day similar to Earth; so it makes sense to standardize time for those two planets and forget about the rest.

We could call the new second by a new name, maybe, to reduce confusion with the current SI second.

 

[dougkeenan]

The farther away from the equator you go you never get the sun directly overhead; until at the poles it's always on the horizon. I'm not sure how that would affect plants in a greenhouse on Antarctica, since plants tend to grow towards the light.

They use artificial lighting. One of the industry rags I carry in my store had some photos of their setup - pretty darn clever. Benches that slide in and out so they don't waste any of their HID "footprint." I can dig it up if you're interested but this is drifting a bit off-topic. (Thanks for pointing out the angle of incidence, hadn't thought about that.)

 

[n72.75]

What about using universial time as an official timekeeping system.

But for scheduling, say: that martian mining opperation, you could use precentage of rotation releative to the sun.