Why is it necessary to establish a time zone for the moon?

a Artemis project Getting closer and closer to the landing, taking humans to the moon again. However, NASA is not the only space agency interested in advancing research on lunar soil. Apparently, we are just a few steps away from actually starting to colonize our natural satellite.

One of the most talked about news these days concerns the creation of a time zone on the Moon. According to the scientists involved in this project, due to the large number of future projects running on the satellite and their longer duration, it is necessary for the satellite to have its own schedule.

That’s because time runs faster on our satellite, at 56 microseconds. Although this period is very small, it accumulates over time, similar to the need for a leap year.

Therefore, without this time zone, on increasingly long journeys and explorations, there will be communication problems between astronauts and machines with Earth.

Therefore, in addition to favoring communication between the Earth and the Moon, the lunar time zone is also important for communication between the various teams operating on the satellite.

Therefore, scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA) are talking to other space agencies from several countries so that together they can work out how to correctly calculate and define this new time zone.

Why is there a time difference?

The great genius Albert Einstein was responsible for answering the question in the above title. The scientist proposed his general theory of relativity to the academy, which explains that the universe consists not only of space, but of space-time.

To sum up and simplify as much as possible, general relativity works like this: according to the theory, celestial bodies, with their enormous density, “warp” space-time around themselves. This generates, for example, gravity or attraction.

Therefore, every body, no matter how small, distorts reality on some level, including you and everything around you. So at the same time that the Earth is exerting force on you, you are also exerting force on the Earth. However, the quantities vary greatly.

But from an astronomical perspective, Einstein suggested that space is inseparable from time, and therefore, the greater the force that the body exerts on space, attracting everything around it, and at the same time also tampering with time, making it faster or slower, that is, distorting it.

Even if time passes normally for those closest to the singularity, for those on the outside, time is extremely slow.

This theory is seen “in practice” in the movie “Interstellar”, where two characters go on a mission to get close to a black hole, causing so much distortion in space-time that it’s practically impossible to calculate.

Although the distance between the control ship and the planet was not very different, since it was close to the black hole, time passed very slowly for the characters. So even if it was only a few minutes for them, for the ship’s crew, it was years.