There are more and more missions to the Moon, which is why the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to create a separate time zone for the Moon.
If the creation of a lunar time zone is established, it will pave the way for the establishment of time zones for other planets in the future.
During the first week of March, the agency said organizations around the world were considering how best to track time spent on the Moon. The idea was proposed at a conference in the Netherlands late last month, with participants agreeing there was an urgent need to establish “a common reference time for the Moon”, According to Pietro Giordano, navigation systems engineer.
“A multinational effort is underway to achieve this.”Giordano shared in a statement.
The European Space Agency wants to create a separate time zone for the Moon.
With more and more lunar missions planned, the European Space Agency wants to create a separate time zone for the Moon. (Photo: AP).
European authorities say an international lunar time zone would benefit everyone, especially in the context where more and more countries and private companies are targeting the Moon and where NASA (American Space Agency) plans to soon send astronauts back to this celestial body. NASA plans to make the first flight to the Moon with astronauts in more than half a century in 2024, with a landing in 2025 at the earliest.
NASA struggled with timing when designing and building the International Space Station, a project that is about to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of its first component. This station does not have its own time zone, it uses it Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a system based on the careful measurements of atomic clocks. This system eliminates time differences between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, as well as other partner programs with Russia, Japan and Europe.
In February 2023, ESA announced that space organizations around the world were considering how best to track time spent on the Moon. Photo: ESA
The international team working on this common time zone is considering whether one or more organizations should establish and maintain lunar time. There are also technical issues to consider. The investigation shows, Clocks run faster on the Moon than on Earth, the difference is about 56 microseconds per day (1 second = 1 million microseconds). Moreover, it is even more complicated when there is a time difference between the orbit and the surface of the Moon.
“This mission will be quite difficult” While each day on this celestial body lasts 29.5 Earth days, Bernhard Hufenbach of the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a statement. “But if there was a timekeeping system for the Moon, we could do the same for other destinations in the universe.” (like establishing a common time for Mars).
Currently, lunar missions will use the time of the country operating the spacecraft for that mission.
Article source: PNVN
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There are more and more missions to the Moon, which is why the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to create a separate time zone for the Moon.
