The space agency then hopes to use the standard elsewhere in the solar system.
NASA said the time zone, known as Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC), will be determined by finding a weighted average of multiple atomic clocks on the Moon, a calculation similar to that used on Earth to determine Universal Time (UTC).
Scientists are still working to figure out where on the Moon these clocks should be, because atomic clocks on the Moon’s surface are ticking about 56 microseconds a day faster than those on Earth. One second is equal to 1 million microseconds.
At the speed of light, something can travel just over 9.54 miles in 56 microseconds. Unless this discrepancy is corrected, people on Earth might think that something or someone orbiting the Moon was this far from where it actually was.
“If someone were orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who had not compensated for the effects of relativity over the course of a day would think the orbiting astronaut was about 168 football fields away from where they actually were,” Cheryl Gramling, NASA’s lunar position, navigation, timing and standards officer, said in a statement.
Once NASA figures out exactly how to calculate lunar time by Earth standards, these methods can be used to find the time of other planets in the solar system.
Moon Time will also aid future lunar exploration as a first step toward creating a lunar clock equivalent to GPS.
“This work lays the foundation for adopting a GPS-like navigation and timing system that would serve near-Earth and Earth-bound users for lunar exploration,” National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist Neil Ashby said in a statement released by NIST last month.
The effort to find Lunar Time was first mandated by a directive from the Biden administration in April.
