It seems like a belated April Fool’s joke, but it’s true: the moon gets its own time zone. NASA has been tasked by the White House to come up with it. The deadline? End of 2026.
When the long-awaited Artemis III mission takes place, which will see the first astronauts set foot on the moon again, that is approximately when Coordinated Lunar Time begins. The moon will have its own time zone, which will be introduced at the end of 2026, he said Reuters. It’s not just a lick of the finger and a stick in the air: it involves a lot of complicated calculations.
Coordinated Lunar Time
This is because the moon moves very differently from the Earth. The gravity is quite different, the temperatures are different and all in all this (along with other factors) means that time runs differently too. The moon’s clock loses 58.7 microseconds at the bottom of the line every Earth day, which causes the clock to become skewed with the Earth. To check whether it is correct after determining the time zone, so that all astronauts can set their clocks to the same time when they visit, an atomic clock will also be placed on the moon to keep track of time.
The nice thing is that this can be traced back to Einstein’s theory of relativity: with that theory he indicates that time changes based on speed and gravity. Gravity on the moon is much less intense than on Earth, and we also move differently on Earth, making time pass faster on the moon than on us. A time zone for the moon is therefore useful, partly for communication.
Moon time zone
Of course, this actually has little to do with the moon, especially its timing. It has everything to do with the heat under the feet of the Americans. They once again see the moon as an object that we have to race around. It feels the hot breath of China, India, Russia and Japan on its neck and wants to be decisive. And as Father Time you could of course be very decisive, although it is of course also a matter of science. In any case, it is not without reason that this comes from politics and not from NASA itself.
December 31, 2026, then the moon gets its time zone. By the way, it is not just America that determines this: it must sit down with the entities that have signed the Artemis Accords. These are 37 countries, so it will take some time. Interesting detail: China and Russia are not part of that group. We are also curious whether there will soon be a time zone on Mars, although it is currently not that easy to place an atomic clock there: on the other hand, there are no astronauts there for the time being who want to set their watches.
