{"id":17036,"date":"2024-04-03T10:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T10:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/moon-to-get-its-own-time-zone-created-by-nasa-but-clocks-work-differently-there\/"},"modified":"2024-04-03T10:23:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T10:23:00","slug":"moon-to-get-its-own-time-zone-created-by-nasa-but-clocks-work-differently-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/moon-to-get-its-own-time-zone-created-by-nasa-but-clocks-work-differently-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Moon to get its own time zone created by NASA – but clocks work differently there"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Moon<\/div>


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The moon will get its own time zone after the White House directed NASA to develop a unified lunar time standard by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

The Coordinated Lunar Time, or LTC, would provide a time-keeping benchmark for lunar spacecraft and satellites that will require extreme precision for their missions.<\/p>\n

Having a standard lunar time is vital – and complicated – because time unfolds differently on the moon<\/a><\/strong> compared to how it is perceived on Earth due to the difference in gravitational force.<\/p>\n

“The same clock that we have on Earth would move at a different rate on the moon,” Kevin Coggins, NASA’s space communications and navigation chief, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

For a person on the moon, an Earth-based clock would appear to lose on average 58.7 microseconds per Earth-day, the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said in a memo.<\/p>\n

Other periodic variations would further drift moon time from Earth time, Arati Prabhakar added.<\/p>\n

The OSTP instructed NASA to work with other parts of the US government to devise a plan by the end of 2026 for developing LTC.<\/p>\n

“Think of the atomic clocks at the US Naval Observatory [in Washington]. They’re the heartbeat of the nation,
synchronising everything. You’re going to want a heartbeat on the moon,” Mr Coggins said.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
Can I see the total solar eclipse in the UK and why is this one unique?<\/a>
Astrocomb breakthrough could help discover Earth-like planets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n 2:11<\/span>
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NASA’s Artemis mission explained<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Under NASA’s Artemis programme, the space agency is aiming take a team of astronauts to the moon<\/a><\/strong> in the coming years for the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972.<\/p>\n

Dozens of companies, spacecraft and countries are involved in the effort.<\/p>\n

An OSTP official said that without a unified lunar time standard it would be challenging to ensure that data transfers between spacecraft are secure and that communications between Earth, satellites, bases and astronauts are synchronised.<\/p>\n

Discrepancies in time also could lead to errors in mapping and locating positions on or orbiting the moon, they added.<\/p>\n

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“Imagine if the world wasn’t syncing their clocks to the same time – how disruptive that might be and how challenging everyday things become,” the official said.<\/p>\n

On Earth, most clocks and time zones are based on Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, which relies on a vast global network of atomic clocks around the world.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The moon will get its own time zone after the White House directed NASA to develop a unified lunar time standard by the end of 2026. The Coordinated Lunar Time, or LTC, would provide a time-keeping benchmark for lunar spacecraft and satellites that will require extreme precision for their missions. Having a standard lunar time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/22\/11\/768x432\/skynews-nasa-artemis-rocket_5967770.jpg?20221116081209","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[19426,22539,22540,3891,2660,222,1396,2752],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17038,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions\/17038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}