Countries move toward creating lunar standard time
Nations are preparing to establish a unified lunar time standard, with the issue set to be discussed at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris this October, Qazinform News Agency cites Kyodo.
By 2030, operations such as permanent lunar bases and navigation systems are expected to be underway.
Under general relativity, time on the Moon runs slightly faster than on Earth — about 56 microseconds per day.
Even a 1 microsecond error could shift calculated positions by 300 meters, affecting robots and construction at lunar bases.
Two proposals exist for setting lunar time. One is a hypothetical clock at the Moon’s center of mass and the other is a real clock at the Moon’s average surface height, closer to Earth’s current time definition.
Both the United States and China are among the countries racing to land astronauts and secure lunar resources.
Signals from satellites orbiting the Moon will be used for positioning, similar to GPS on Earth.
Experts, including Mamoru Sekido of Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, stress the need for international cooperation to unify standards across different countries’ satellites.
To note, scientists have identified evidence of a major asteroid impact that struck the Moon around 3.5 billion years ago, a discovery that could help researchers better understand a crucial period in the history of the inner solar system and the conditions under which life emerged on Earth.
