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:
“When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me”
—William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)