- Written by Esme Stallard
- BBC News climate and science reporter
The White House wants the US space agency NASA to develop a new time zone for the moon, Coordinated Lunar Time (CLT).
Due to the different strength of the gravitational field on the Moon, time moves faster on the Moon than on Earth: 58.7 microseconds faster each day.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it can have serious implications when trying to synchronize spacecraft.
The U.S. government hopes the new period will help coordinate national and private efforts to reach the moon.
Professor Catherine Heymans, Royal Astronomer of Scotland, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “This fundamental theory of gravity in our universe has the important consequence that time passes differently in different parts of the universe. is bringing about.
“Gravity is slightly weaker on the moon, so the clock runs differently.”
Currently, time on Earth is measured by hundreds of atomic clocks placed around the Earth. Atomic clocks record time down to nanoseconds by measuring changes in the energy states of atoms. If placed on the moon, it would run one second faster for more than 50 years.
“The moon's atomic clock ticks at a different rate than Earth's clock,” said Kevin Coggins, NASA's communications and navigation executive.
“When you go to different celestial bodies, like the Moon or Mars, it makes sense that each body gets its own heart rate,” he says.
But NASA isn't the only one trying to make lunar time a reality. The European Space Agency has also been developing a new time system for some time. This requires agreement between each country and a central coordinating body, which is currently done by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures for global time.
Currently, the International Space Station uses Coordinated Universal Time because it remains in low orbit. Another element that countries must agree on is where the new time frame will begin and how far it will extend.
The US hopes the CLT will be ready by 2026, in time for a manned mission to the moon.
Artemis 3 will be the first mission to return to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the moon's south pole, where it is believed that vast amounts of water ice are stored in craters that are protected from sunlight.
Locating and directing this mission requires extreme precision down to nanoseconds, and navigational errors can put the spacecraft into the wrong orbit.
But Artemis 3 is one of many planned national missions to the moon, as well as private efforts. If time is not coordinated between them, problems can occur when transmitting data and communicating between spacecraft, satellites, and Earth.