Thanks to Einstein’s relativity, time flows differently on Mars than on Earth. NIST scientists have now nailed down the difference, showing that Mars clocks tick slightly faster—and fluctuate over the Martian year. These microsecond shifts could play a big role in future Mars navigation, communications, and even a solar-system-wide internet. It’s a small time gap with big consequences for space exploration.
This was “proved” in 1915, and many many times since then. The article just talks about how relativity describes how gravity affects the progression of time
We measured it this time…
We knew what the measurements would show, but still, no one had done it yet.
Not groundbreaking, not surprising, but science is ratchet is this was an incremental step that once done can be built on.
Eventually we’re gonna have to prove all this shit anyways.
Edit:
The fact that it’s not stable is pretty cool too. Very small variety, but still, on a very very small scale that may matter.
The authors of the original article cited by this news outlet did not measure any time on Mars in any way. They did a theoretical calculation of the time difference with Earth based on astronomical data about Mars like mass, orbit, etc.