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2024-11-11

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Nasa to create time standard for the Moon, where seconds tick faster than on Earth (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) needed due to differing gravitational forces

Nasa is working to create a new standard of time for the Moon that will see clocks move faster than on Earth, according to a White House memo.

The US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed the US space agency to set up a moon-centric time reference system that accounts for its differing gravitational forces.

In a memo on Tuesday, OSTP chief Arati Prabhakar noted that Earth-based clocks would appear to lose 58.7 microseconds per Earth-day as a result of these factors.

Nasa has until 2026 to set up a unified time standard, which Ms Prabhakar referred to as Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC). It will then be used by astronauts, spacecraft and satellites that require highly accurate timekeeping.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Taking the risk to sound like a complete idiot but why cant we technically.

agree on how late it is.
call it universal time.

It might feel like weird to live during different hours but i am sure people will adapt to their local sleeping/waking/eating moments. Most of us arent following our bioclock anyway.

Or is this about needing a way to quantify a unit of time scientifically when not on earth? But then earth reference points wont work either?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

In all practicality, that's probably what most people are going to do. But there will probably need to be a way of coordinating very long-distance (interplanetary-scale) science experiments and such.