NASA Confirms Plans To Develop Lunar Time Standard

NASA confirmed that it's working with international partners and standards organizations to create a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) for future lunar exploration. This time standard will account for relativity and be scalable for other celestial bodies, supporting long-term missions like Artemis and commercial space activities. From the report: The lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks at the Moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth's globally recognized Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Exactly where at the Moon is still to be determined, since current analysis indicates that atomic clocks placed at the Moon's surface will appear to 'tick' faster by microseconds per day. A microsecond is one millionth of a second. NASA and its partners are currently researching which mathematical models will be best for establishing a lunar time.

To put these numbers into perspective, a hummingbird's wings flap about 50 times per second. Each flap is about .02 seconds, or 20,000 microseconds. So, while 56 microseconds may seem miniscule, when discussing distances in space, tiny bits of time add up. "For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields," said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who isn't compensating for the effects of relativity over a day would think that the orbiting astronaut is approximately 168 football fields away from where the astronaut really is."

Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

"For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields," said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Of course she means lunar football fields which are 1,215 lunar hummingbird lengths.

Re:

[rossdee]

While they might, someday be playing football on the moon, I am pretty sure that hummingbirds won't make it there.

MST

[Briareos]

Just don't forget to add some confusing rules for Moonlight Saving Time that apply several times a lunar year at pseudo-random intervals...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't forget to add some confusing rules for Moonlight Saving Time that apply several times a lunar year at pseudo-random intervals...

And that the rules are different depending on which country the astronaut* is from.

* (cosmonauts and taikonauts don't apply these rules at all and argonauts are too busy pursuing the golden fleece to worry about it)

Re:MST

[93 Escort Wagon]

That's one small time step for man, one giant leap-second for mankind.

Re: MST

[flyingfsck]

Daylight savings time for the deep craters?

Universal?

[dwater]

Do they regret using the word "Universal" for earth's time yet?

Re: Universal?

[Inyu]

I wonder how Earth was able to have UTC time, without various nationalistic Nations making up their very own time, like there's is with the diversity of calendars.

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

Humans agree on standards when there is a compelling interest in doing so. Co-ordination of time is a clear example of this.

Re:

[kencurry]

don't tell that to Arizona.

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

Areas are free to choose time-zones, and whether to observe daylight-saving time. Arizona doesn't observe DST because otherwise it stays hot for too long in the summer evenings. And yet the Navajo Nation, most of which is in Arizona, does observe DST. Not sure why, but they have a sovereign right to choose.

The point is that most regions on earth have chosen to be part of an on-the-hour time-zone, with some well-known exceptions (e.g., Nepal and Newfoundland, Canada are off-the-hour by 15 minutes and 30 minu

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I wonder how Earth was able to have UTC time, without various nationalistic Nations making up their very own time, like there's is with the diversity of calendars.

Have you seen the time zone boundary map? Because that's basically full of those nationalistic nations making up their own time.

China is all one time zone, for example, despite spanning 3. There are plenty of little islands where the border zigs and zags to put them in the same time zone as other islands.

And then there are the oddball timezones, w

Re:

[Entrope]

But we did a much better job naming the World Series baseball championship, right?

Football fields and hummingbird flaps

[hmilz]

Really scientific.

We have a time standard...

[bradley13]

I don't see the need for this. We have a "universal" time standard. Yes, there are minor effects through gravity (clocks on satellite run faster than clocks on earth), but these differences are continually corrected. Why not make similar corrections for clocks on the moon?

Perhaps even better, fix the "universal" standard: Make it the standard for clocks in the absences of gravity, then apply corrections as needed for clocks in gravitational fields, be that on earth, in orbit, on the moon, on Mars, or wherever.

NASA must be running out of ideas

[FudRucker]

for things to waste money on, come on NASA how about a mission to the sun and do it at night

Clocks

[backslashdot]

Any of you guys remember when time was inaccurate? Having to periodically synchronize your watch?

Re: Clocks

[flyingfsck]

My watch is mechanical and it keeps time perfectly. Everything else is always wrong though. It is so annoying.

Re:

[gawbl]

A man with one watch knows what time it is.

A man with two watches is never sure.

Lunar Daylight Savings

[akw0088]

Perfect opportunity to make time more complicated, throw in multiple daylight saving shifts that happen every two years except when itâ(TM)s a leap year and throw in some random leap minutes if it was a cold winter

Gene figured this out.

[RitchCraft]

I thought Star Trek already had this figured out?

The Moon is a harsh mistress

[nospam007]

I hate it when I take the Chandra rocket sled to the Selene spaceport and the Luna Shuttle service is already gone because of this.

Weird units

[sconeu]

For those who care, 168 US football fields is roughly 15km. 15.36192km, to be a little more accurate.

Re: Weird units

[Original Curmudgeon]

Or, you know, roughly 10 miles. But yeah, express it in "football fields" because that's a unit everyone in America understands.

Days of the full Moon

[techno-vampire]

TFA starts with a photo of the Moon with this caption: "The Moon is pictured on Dec. 7, 2022, the day before its Full Moon phase from the International Space Station as it orbited above the southern Indian Ocean."

That means that it was taken on the first of the Three Days of the Full Moon, when werewolves prowl the Earth. Maybe that's why it was taken from the ISS.

Two problems

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... would think that the orbiting astronaut ...

Time on Earth evolved around two principles: 1. a) We organize our activities, around the rotation of the planet (Terran day), b) Life is organized around the tilting of the planet (seasons of weather), which is described by an orbit around the sun (Terran year). 2. Human productivity is limited to bursts of 6-12 hours.

On other planets, Point 2 is the deciding factor, although it in turn requires Point 1(a). The Star Trek idea of counting only weeks is good, although laws would have to be changed fr

LTC for people that live there, NOT !!!

[bsdetector101]

Really........ Planning ahead ???

Astronauts and football fields

[Woeful Countenance]

"For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields," said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who isn't compensating for the effects of relativity over a day would think that the orbiting astronaut is approximately 168 football fields away from where the astronaut really is."

This seems to imply that someone orbiting the moon is traveling at the speed of light. Seems like that might not be entirely correct. (Not to mention there's a much longer delay of more than a second between events on the moon and observation on Earth.) Might make one wonder whether this is really the right person for this job.