What Time is it on the Moon ?

It's a question that's been asked by the many a visitor to the Moon , how do you know if it's time for tea if you don't know what the time is ?


This question has gone unanswered for far to long and with the increase of traffic to the Moon and NASA's plan to return people there the White House has asked Nasa to give the Moon its own Time Zone.

Lunar time will run differently from time zones on Earth. Because there's less gravity on the moon, time there moves slower than on our planet — lagging behind by 58.7 microseconds every day. This seemingly small difference is enough to throw off the precise maneuvers of lunar spacecraft and satellites.
"The same clock that we have on Earth would move at a different rate on the moon," Kevin Coggins, NASA's space communications and navigation program manager, told Reuters.

LTC is being set up in anticipation of NASA's return to the moon. Following the Artemis 1 test flight, which sent NASA's uncrewed Orion capsule on a round trip to the moon in November 2022, the space agency plans to send humans into orbit around the moon in 2025 and onto its surface in 2026.

These missions will be vital steps towards NASA's greatest ambition for the Artemis program: taking humans to Mars.

With dozens of countries and companies involved in new missions to the moon, a standardized way of synchronizing clocks is vital.

"Think of the atomic clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory (in Washington). They're the heartbeat of the nation, synchronizing everything," Coggins told Reuters. "You're going to want a heartbeat on the moon."
www.livescience.com...

Memo to NASA

And it's ALWAYS time for tea so a "body clock" is all that's needed.

It's always 5 PM somewhere for a good G & T.

Einstein and Galileo on the moon holding a beer
a reply to: gortex

I'm not sure if we should expand our human concepts past our own world.

It all starts with moon time, next thing you know, we start introducing the concept of moon money.

Because time is money.

We'll never get accepted into the Galactic Federation if we try to apply our human concepts to the universe.

a reply to: gortex

Sounds reasonable if people plan on visiting or inhabiting the moon and Mars.

A galactic standard similar to our UTC would make things easier.


ETA Not sure if it’s 100% the standard, but it looks like Mars does have a time already other than Sols.
But it makes sense as a meantime.

MTC = (24 h × MSD) mod 24

Mars Clock

So, a Moon day is 58.7 microseconds shorter than an Earth day, but it's still a day, right?

Or is a Moon day only .999995 of a day?

No, it's still a day. We just have a tiny gravitational effect that creates the tiniest time lag throughout the entire day.

So, all we have to do is adjust for this tiny lag.

A Moon clock that runs 58.7 microseconds a day slower than Earth clocks, would do this.

So, now we have a sort of real-time measure between Earth and the Moon, but what if we need to keep time in other places in space with differing gravities.

We need something like a gravitational time adjustment device.

We know the difference between the gravitational forces of Earth and the Moon, and we know the rate at which it effects time, so that rate could be applied to other known gravitational forces.

Better yet, would be to use a gravitational sensor to measure gravity continuously, so that continuous time adjustments could be made. This should keep a "universal real-time" or a "now time" fairly accurately, but you would think that we would still want to stay synced up with everyone else, and continuously synced up if possible.

How might we stay synced?

I'm guessing that looking at pulsar stars may hold the answer.

Once accomplished, we could say that we now have a "Universal Real-Time Clock", a "Now Clock", or something like that. After all, no matter where you go in the universe it's always going to be now.

These will come in handy as we travel further beyond Earth, and may be necessary for if we ever find ways around traveling faster than the speed of light.

originally posted by: nerbot
And it's ALWAYS time for tea so a "body clock" is all that's needed.

There was a study done a long awhile back to discover the circadian rhythms of humans and it found that Humans have a rhythm longer than 24 hours which is very strange.

a reply to: IndieA

Or is a Moon day only .999995 of a day?

A Moon day is 2 Earth weeks , I think they should just send a Sun dial and work it out from there.

A simple solution would be to use UTC for the entire moon.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: IndieA

Or is a Moon day only .999995 of a day?

A Moon day is 2 Earth weeks , I think they should just send a Sun dial and work it out from there.

I said:

Or is a Moon day only .999995 of a day?

But I meant, or is an Earth day on the Moon only .999995 of an Earth day on Earth.

An Earth day is 1 Earth day on Earth or the Moon, since an Earth day involves the rotation of Earth one time.

A better example might be a lunar month.
The Moon makes the same number of revolutions around the Earth every year whether you are on Earth or the Moon.

originally posted by: Nickn4
A simple solution would be to use UTC for the entire moon.

Or use UTC across the universe, which should be possible with gravitational force adjusting and pulsar syncing clocks.

As I travel across the galaxy in the video game Starfield, my ship and I keep a UTC time, and whenever I'm on a planet I will also keep the planet's time according to the time zone I'm in.

considering that on earth, one day is the time it takes for the planet to complete one full revolution on its axis, one would imagine the same should hold true for the moon, which, as it is tidally locked, means it takes approximately 28 days to complete one revolution so one lunar hour is a bit more than one earth day (1.167 days to be more accurate)

Hammer time?



Some kinda mining anyhow, per Ingo Swann.

As someone that deals with all parts of the planet I do not need another clock .

I would think, as the Moon is a satellite of Earth, it would be UTC time. Now on other planets, Mars for example, there would be a system worked out like UTC and devided into hourly time zones accordingly. That would be after there are more than a few self supporting manned bases on Mars. No need for Moon time to be different as it would be dependant on Earth for support.

It is all about the distances involved. The Moon is seconds away by radio but Mars is many minutes at best.

Personally, I think time zones are an outdated concept. Just schedual things according to UTC and there will be no need for time confusion internationally.

a reply to: gortex

How about a sundial ....? Of course that 2 week lunar night might be problem .........

originally posted by: gortex
It's a question that's been asked by the many a visitor to the Moon , how do you know if it's time for tea if you don't know what the time is ?

This question has gone unanswered for far to long and with the increase of traffic to the Moon and NASA's plan to return people there the White House has asked Nasa to give the Moon its own Time Zone.

Lunar time will run differently from time zones on Earth. Because there's less gravity on the moon, time there moves slower than on our planet — lagging behind by 58.7 microseconds every day. This seemingly small difference is enough to throw off the precise maneuvers of lunar spacecraft and satellites.
"The same clock that we have on Earth would move at a different rate on the moon," Kevin Coggins, NASA's space communications and navigation program manager, told Reuters.

LTC is being set up in anticipation of NASA's return to the moon. Following the Artemis 1 test flight, which sent NASA's uncrewed Orion capsule on a round trip to the moon in November 2022, the space agency plans to send humans into orbit around the moon in 2025 and onto its surface in 2026.

These missions will be vital steps towards NASA's greatest ambition for the Artemis program: taking humans to Mars.

With dozens of countries and companies involved in new missions to the moon, a standardized way of synchronizing clocks is vital.

"Think of the atomic clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory (in Washington). They're the heartbeat of the nation, synchronizing everything," Coggins told Reuters. "You're going to want a heartbeat on the moon."
www.livescience.com...

Memo to NASA

Why have we not returned to the moon?
It's costly, ok. It's dangerous, ok.
Is there something else we don't know? It's very difficult to get there and we need to do it all over again because we the 'know how' to do the task is long gone.

originally posted by: IndieA
But I meant, or is an Earth day on the Moon only .999995 of an Earth day on Earth.

24 hours is the same on the Earth and the Moon. But different relativistically. If you took two identical clocks, left one on Earth and brought the other to the Moon, they would run at different speeds relative to each other.

a reply to: gortex

Well its not going to be measured in the same way as it is on Earth.

Considering the Moon does not have its own time zones like Earth.

Nor does it rotate at the same rate as the planet.