Arean calendar

The Martian Calendar is a distant variant of the Darian Calendar adopted in the early 22nd century, with some notable differences.

Mechanics

It normally has 24 months of 28 days each. On several cycles, a month is dropped from the year, the most frequent being every 10th Martian year. The next drop cycle occurs every 25th and 75th years in a century. The final cycle occurs every 588th year, beginning with year 589, and assuming human civilization lasts so long, on those years which would cause two months to be dropped, the dropped month is pushed to the next year instead.

The Martian epoch begins as with the Darian Calendar, on March 11th, 1609 Earth (Gregorian) time, Midnight GMT, as 'year 0'.

A day on Mars is sometimes called a sol, primarily to differentiate it from the term 'day' on Earth. Since a Martian solar day is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds long, it does not exactly match up with a week, and so is termed differently.

Each month is divided into four weeks of seven days, named in order: Helisol, Phobosol, Deimosol, Venusol, Terrasol, Jovesol and Lunasol, named after the most brilliant natural objects seen from the planet's surface (the Martian Ring, even segments of it, is easily the brightest object in the Arean sky). As Phobos and Deimos are consumed in the voracious appetite of human industry, their memory will at least be aided by such naming.

Usage

The development of satmets allow for near-instantaneous communication between Earth, Luna, Mars, and Ouranos Prime, and with further plans to incorporate such transmitters into the stellar gates. This has made the Helios Calendar significantly more popular, and general usage of the Gregorian and Martian Calendar has fallen significantly.

Still, it is extremely useful for local needs, and millions of people never have to use anything else to conduct daily business. It is first and formost a social calendar, and serves as such.

Most call a day a day, only referring to a sol as a unit of time when being specific or discussing matters with residents of Earth or Luna.