The moon will have its own time zone as space travel aims to bring humans back, here’s why

Moon time in Greenwich?

As NASA tries to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the early 1970s, astronomy experts say the orbital rock needs its own localized time zone.

Why?

Simply because terrestrial clocks will not do the job due to changes in gravity outside the world.

A new paper from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) explains that even the most efficient terrestrial clocks, which keep pace using atomic principles, will tick slightly faster at a rate of 56 microseconds per day on the moon, where gravity is. weaker.

That’s a significant number when considering the scale of future manned Artemis missions that will increase “the number of assets on the lunar surface,” add the authors, now published in The Astronomical Journal.

“Communication and navigation systems rely on a network of clocks that synchronize with each other within tens of nanoseconds.”

Basically, similar to how car clocks lose their accurate time after a while, the same would happen to equipment on the surface of the Moon.

The alternative still being proposed and recently supported by the International Astronomical Union is the development of Lunar Coordinated Time. It would work similarly to the principle of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

This concept originating in the 1960s—within a nanosecond of precision—keeps a single, ultra-specific time by averaging atomic clock measurements globally. UTC is used by scientists and laboratories around the world.

Experts can adjust UTC for space exploration purposes.

It’s like having the entire moon synchronized to a time zone adjusted to the moon’s gravity, instead of clocks gradually falling out of sync with Earth time, said NIST physicist Bijunath Patla.

It is currently unknown whether there would be only one or several time zones on the Moon.

Lunar Coordinate Time would also play a role in space and lunar navigation, added NIST physicist Neil Ashby. Specifically, he would put work on a “GPS-like system” but on the Moon, he said.

Palta is convinced that this approach can also be used for boundaries beyond our lunar surface.

The proposed framework supporting lunar coordinate timing could eventually enable exploration beyond the moon and even beyond our own solar system, the expert said.

Specifically, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity first addressed the concept that time can move more slowly under different gravitational conditions.

In this case, the changes occur partly due to the moon revolving around the Earth and the revolution of our planet around the sun.