The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has joined the global effort to establish a different time zone on the Moon during the General Assembly meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. The US White House directed NASA in April of this year to create a timezone for the Moon by the end of 2026.

Why is a separate time zone necessary on the Moon?

We know that Earth follows a standard time zone known as Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. The UTC zone is calculated using 450 atomic clocks placed in 85 laboratories throughout the world. This time zone is globally accepted and used to set a single, precise time standard.

Now let’s understand how time works on the moon.

The moon is much smaller in size and thus has less gravity. Also, the moon’s orbital movement makes one lunar day equal to 29.5 Earth days. Due to less gravity, the time moves slightly faster on the moon, about 58.7 microseconds quicker each day.

For reference, a human blink lasts about 0.1 to 0.4 seconds, which is 100,000 to 400,000 microseconds. The clocks coordinated as per Coordinated Universal Time would run slightly faster on the moon, as published in a recent research paper by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

This difference might seem very small, but it plays a very crucial role in maintaining communication, tracking, and navigation as NASA prepares for crewed missions like the Artemis mission. Currently, the missions run in the timezone of the country that launches the spacecraft.

The new timezone on the moon would be known as Lunar Coordinate Time (LTC). The timezone on the Moon can be coordinated using the similar atomic clocks used on Earth, adjusted as per the gravity of the Moon.