Start of Year
The Martian year is treated as beginning near the equinox marking spring in the northern hemisphere of the planet. Mars currently has an axial inclination similar to that of the Earth, so the Martian seasons are perceptible, though the greater eccentricity of Mars' orbit about the Sun compared with that of the Earth means that their significance is strongly amplified in the southern hemisphere and masked in the northern hemisphere. The most sophisticated calculations of the Darian calendar extend to the point of making allowance for the slight increase in the length of the Martian vernal equinox year over several thousand years. These prescribe a more complicated intercalation formula (for details see the link cited below).
Read more about this topic: Darian Calendar
Famous quotes containing the words start and/or year:
“O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“These young women have had four years of very special space.... This has been special space. This has been safe space. But when they graduate, they will begin to deal on a daily basis, all day long, month after month, year after year, with the realities that still haunt our nation.”
—Johnnetta Betsch Cole (b. 1936)