Summer solstice in Mars’ southern hemisphere is April 25

By Spacephototshirts

On Earth, nothing could feel as familiar as the passing of our seasons. And our days are steady, too — 24 hours, over and over, all our lives. But not so on Mars. Different world, just one step outward from Earth. Same laws of nature … but alien all the same. In this livestream, EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd explores the seasons on the Red Planet — and how even small differences in time and orbit can reshape our perception of a world. Watch in the player above or on YouTube.

Summer solstice in Mars’ southern hemisphere

Earth’s next solstice will fall at 8:25 UTC on June 21, 2026. It’ll be a summer solstice for the Northern Hemisphere (and a winter solstice for the Southern Hemisphere). It’ll happen when Earth’s south pole is tilted most toward the sun.

Like Earth, Mars tilts on its axis with respect to its orbit around the sun. It tilts by about 25 degrees, in contrast to Earth’s 23.5 degrees. So Mars has equinoxes and solstices as well. And Mars’ summer solstice for its southern hemisphere arrives on April 25, 2026.

Like Earth, Mars has 4 seasons

Mars takes 687 Earth-days to orbit the sun once. That’s almost 2 Earth-years. So each season on Mars – winter, spring, summer, fall – lasts roughly twice as long as a season on Earth.

And, meanwhile, although the image below is exaggerated, the orbit of Mars is more squashed than that of Earth. Astronomers say it’s more elliptical. Mars is farthest from the sun during southern winter … and closest during southern summer. So the Mars southern hemisphere has shorter, hotter, more extreme seasons.

So – now, in April 2026, as Mars’ northern hemisphere of is tipping into the deepest part of winter – its southern hemisphere is celebrating summer. Of course, nothing is blooming. To date, scientists haven’t confirmed life on Mars, today or in the past. But there’s still seasonal change, just as there is in the most Mars-like places on Earth … Antarctica, for example.

Mars has 4 seasons, just as Earth does. But the Mars seasons last twice as long, because Mars takes 2 years to orbit the sun once. Summer solstice for Mars southern hemisphere falls on April 25, 2026. And the southern hemisphere has “harsher” seasons than in the north. During southern winter, Mars is farthest away from the sun in its elliptical orbit. Winter in Mars’ southern hemisphere is colder, because then Mars is the farthest away from the sun, moving more slowly in its orbit. Going from a winter to warmer spring can be quite dramatic. Spring for the rovers on Mars is the start of the dust season. By summer, global dust storms can blanket the whole planet. But no global dust storm is expected in 2026. Image via NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/seasons-in-the-martian-year-as-the-red-planet-orbits-the-sun/

The season of dust

And on Mars, the seasons aren’t equal. Because of its lopsided orbit – and because southern summers happen when Mars is closest to the sun, moving fastest in orbit – southern summers are shorter, hotter, and more volatile than in the north. That’s when dust storms can kick up — sometimes growing large enough to wrap around the entire planet. In the image below – from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018 – you can see what that looks like. No surface features are visible because – for some months in 2018, centered on the Martian southern summer – Mars was shrouded in dust.

On average, global storms happen once every 3 to 4 Mars-years. That’s about every 5-and-a-half to 8 Earth-years.

A red ball, almost featureless. — In mid-July the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed Mars, only 13 days before the planet made its closest approach to Earth in 2018. While previous images showed detailed surface features of the planet, this new image is dominated by a gigantic sandstorm enshrouding the entire planet. Each Martian year, moderately large dust storms cover continent-sized areas and last for weeks at a time. Global dust storms — lasting for weeks or months — tend to happen during the spring and summer in the southern hemisphere, when Mars is closest to the Sun and heating is at a maximum, leading to greater generation of winds. While spacecraft orbiting Mars can study the storm’s behaviour at lower altitudes, Hubble observations allow astronomers to study changes in the higher atmosphere. The combined observations will help planetary scientists to build a better understanding of how these global storms arise. Image via ESA/Hubble.

Bottom line: The summer solstice on Mars’ southern hemisphere happens on April 25, 2026. At that time, the south pole of Mars is pointed most directly toward the sun.

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