Mars Report vs PianetaClock

Get a real time report from the Curiosity rover on Mars. Local time, weather and ephemeris data from the red planet right in your pocket.

Pianeta Clock tells you what time it is on the other seven planets, worked out the way a mission does it. Not an offset from a clock on Earth. Every reading comes from the same published constants a spacecraft navigator uses: the IAU Working Group's rotation elements for how each world turns, and JPL's orbital elements for where it is. The Mars readings are checked against NASA GISS's Mars24, the reference implementation of Mars solar time. WHAT IT SHOWS • Local mean solar time, the uniform clock that never stalls or runs backwards • True solar time, where noon is the moment the Sun actually crosses the meridian, and the equation of time between the two • The day count each world's own convention uses: Mars Sol Date, Modified Julian Day, and mission sols counted from a lander's own clock epoch, so the number matches the one NASA publishes • Solar longitude and the season it marks • How far the planet is right now, how long a radio signal takes to cross that, and when it next lines up with Earth and the Sun THE ORBIT A top-down drawing of both orbits with the angle between Earth and the planet as it stands. Eccentricity is drawn as it really is, so Mercury's orbit sits visibly off-centre from the Sun, which is the same 0.206 that makes its Sun reverse direction near perihelion. Drag along the row of planets and the diagram follows your finger, world by world. TWO KINDS OF HOUR Every mission divides its day into 24 hours however long that day lasts, which makes a Martian second 1.0275 of ours and a Jovian second 0.414. You can have that, or you can keep the second and let the day run to however many hours it actually takes. Mars ends at 24:39. Mercury ends at 4222:28. PIANETA TIMER A focus session counted in another world's minutes. Twenty-five of them is ten Earth minutes on Jupiter, twenty-six on Mars, and three Earth days on Mercury, and every figure is shown with its Earth equivalent beside it so nothing surprises you. It runs on the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island, and when it ends it says which world it was counting. While it runs, a pulse shows how far light launched at the start has travelled toward the planet, and bounces when the session outlasts the crossing. WIDGETS A dial or an orbit on the Home Screen, in whatever configuration you choose, and timers with a start button you can press without opening anything. DRAWN, NOT PHOTOGRAPHED Every world is drawn from shapes rather than an image, so it stays sharp at any size, and it is drawn from what is actually there. Jupiter's belts at their own widths, with the Great Red Spot on the one it has sat on for as long as anyone has looked. Mars's dark swath and cratered highlands. Saturn's rings with the Cassini Division left as the gap it is. Where there is more than one honest answer you choose. Venus has no visible surface at all, so you pick between the cloud deck an eye sees and the radar map Magellan made through it. Earth has three faces, and whose coastline shows is yours to decide. Saturn's globe can match the other planets or its rings can. PRIVACY It collects nothing, sends nothing, and never reaches the network. Your settings live in the app's own storage on your device.