Time zones are important. It’s easy to see that it’s 3pm in New York and noon in Los Angeles. But what time is it in the moon? Back in April, the Biden-Harris administration asked. NASA plans to create a time zone specifically for the moon.
The lunar time zone is useful, for example, for accurate calculations when planning lunar missions. So NASA began working on shortening the Moon’s Coordinated Time to LTC, although the letter order is not perfect.
Timing settings could be useful for space agencies artemis mission We are working towards the next few years. The Artemis III mission, which will return humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo spaceflight more than 50 years ago, is currently planned to launch by September 2026.
According to NASALTC’s plan is to standardize time similar to Coordinated Universal Time, which is the universal standard time that coordinates clocks on Earth. UTC is determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks on Earth. LTC is determined by a weighted average of the moon’s atomic clocks. It seems simple enough, but NASA needs to do some calculations before it can begin transporting watches to the moon.
The biggest problem NASA has to deal with is best explained by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Basically, one second on Earth is slightly faster than one second on the Moon due to differences in gravity and speed.
This effect is called time dilation, and can result in a time difference of up to about 56 microseconds per day, or just over 20,000 microseconds per year. For reference, the average human blink lasts between 100,000 and 350,000 microseconds.
This change in time is imperceptible to humans, but it is a big problem for space research. NASA says this small time difference could throw off calculations and jeopardize future missions.
“For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of about 168 football fields,” said Cheryl Gramling, NASA’s timing and standards lead. Masu. “If someone is orbiting the moon, an observer on Earth who hasn’t corrected for the effects of relativity over the course of a day will notice that the orbiting astronaut is playing football from where the actual astronaut is.” You would think it would be about 168 fields away.
NASA scientists are working on this problem, and the deadline is fast approaching. The White House wants to determine the moon’s time zone by December 31, 2026. The time zone project also seems to have a deadline.
