Atomic clocks on the Moon tick slightly faster than on Earth: Every 24 Earth hours, they gain about 56 microseconds. This discrepancy poses a potential problem for satellite research, where accuracy is crucial for space missions—including surface navigation or network communications. After the US government tasked NASA last April with developing a common time standard for celestial bodies beyond Earth, there now appears to be movement toward a solution.
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) now has aLunar time chart“, which is supposed to solve the problem. This is supposed to be a single time zone synchronized with the Moon, which accommodates the Moon's lower gravitational pull (1.62 m/s² compared to 9.81 m/s² on Earth) and this difference is also responsible for the discrepancy in time measurement up until now.
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According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the plan is to place a “network of high-precision clocks” at specific locations on the moon’s surface and orbit. That means the network would work similarly to GPS navigation and could provide the precise measurements hoped for for landing attempts or general lunar exploration. The goal, says NIST physicist Bijunath Bhatla, is for “spacecraft to come within a few meters of their destination.”
In general, this “lunar time zone” is part of the efforts surrounding the launch. Artemis programIn which NASA aims to permanently colonize the Moon. In addition, the development of such a time standard should also be useful beyond this period: for example, further exploration of Mars, on which the Curiosity rover is currently traveling and recently made an unexpected discovery, was mentioned.
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