Hi everyone,
I'm slowly working my way thru Nick Strobels online notes as recommended and have gotten stuck on the problem of howto work out on solar day on Mars.
I understand and can follow the calculations used in relation to earth.(Well i think I do). I used Excel to create the various little formulas to check and get correct answers. but when I try substituting in the Martion figures I come out with 24h45m instead of 24h39m.
i have included my workings so maybe someone out there can point out my errors and/or explain why my thinking is wrong.
Nick Strobel states " The extra angle any planet must rotate on its axis to get the Sun back to the meridian equals the angle amount the planet moved in its orbit in one sidereal day."
So therefore if Mars has a Solar Year of 686.98 Earth Solar Days it would move 360deg/686.98 = 1.908278 deg so should have to spin 1.91 deg more to complete a Martian solar day.
If mars spins at a rate of 14.62048 deg/hr or 1deg/4.103833min
so that would mean mars would have to spin for an extra 7m 50s
therefore solar day = 24h37m + 7m50s = 24h 45m.
I have attached a copy of my workings in excel which may/maynot help.
in earth1 I use 1deg as the value for the extra angle earth travels for a solar day and Earth 2 uses
I hope I have explained myself and you can follow my above assumptions and my calcs as per attached.
I have spent lots of hrs working on this so before I go total stir crazy i thought I would ask.
Thanks for any assistance.
Regards
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