While the rest of us enjoyed an extra hour of sleep as daylight
saving time ended Sunday, the scientists and engineers working
with the Mars rover Curiosity were just glad to be back on Earth
time. The rover team has finally stopped working on Mars time,
just as they planned. The Mars day, which is called a sol, is
about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, so a Mars rover
driver's schedule shifts by 40 minutes each day. After a few
days of jumping ahead by 40 minutes, they would be working in
the middle of the night. Life on Mars time totally disrupts
their biological clocks, not to mention their personal routines.
People hate it. They do it because they can stay awake when the
rover is asleep, so the team can assess its performance on the
previous day and plan its next moves. But three months into the
mission, the team is comfortable enough with the rover and with
each other to plan farther ahead. Researchers have studied how
blue light and strict routines can help people adjust to the
diurnal cycle of anot