TIME on the Moon is running faster than on Earth, scientists have confirmed – and this has implications for future space missions.
Since the Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, this affects the speed at which time moves.
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And it appears the spacecraft is ahead of its parent planet by 57 millionths of a second, according to researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
To put things into perspective, it has moved just 1.1 seconds ahead of us since the last time humans were on the moon in 1972.
“An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on the clock earth”, explained Kevin Coggins, Ussenior communications and navigation officer.
“It makes sense that when you go to another body like the Moon or Mars, each has its own heartbeat.”
Millionths of a second may seem insignificant, but the difference is more important than ever as NASA prepares to resume crewed missions to the Moon.
The agency aims to send astronauts to the satellite by 2026 as part of its Artemis missions, which will examine potential sites for lunar bases.
Nasa wants to use this stable presence on the Moon as a jumping-off point for expeditions to other destinations in our Solar System, including Mars.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration tasked NASA and other federal agencies with creating a unified time reference system for the Moon.
However, discord is already brewing.
NASA’s figure is just a step ahead of the 56.02 microseconds calculated by researchers at the US National Standards Institute and technology.
None of the results have been peer-reviewed, so the agencies have a ways to go.
A coalition of international agencies and bodies must sign off on the final decision.
To start this process, two key players – the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and the International Astronomical Union – will meet other month.
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The development comes against a backdrop of other discoveries, including a growing body of evidence that Earth’s days are lengthening.
Scientists generally agree that the number is somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 milliseconds per century.
That’s an increase of one minute every 3.3 million years – meaning it will take 200 million years before another clock starts.
Throughout history, the length of Earth’s days has changed. A billion years ago, a day was only about 19 hours long.
The moon – our nearest neighbor explained
Here’s what you need to know…
- The Moon is a natural satellite – a space body that revolves around a planet
- It is the only natural satellite of the Earth and is the fifth largest in the Solar System
- The Moon is 2,158 miles across, roughly 0.27 times the diameter of Earth
- Temperatures on the Moon vary greatly. NASA explains: “Temperatures near the Moon’s equator can rise to 250°F (121°C) in daylight, then drop rapidly after nightfall to -208°F (-133°C). In craters deep near the Moon’s poles, permanent shadows lie surface even colder – NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has measured temperatures as low as -410°F (-246°C).
- Experts assumed the Moon was another planet until Nicolaus Copernicus described his theory of our solar system in 1543.
- It was eventually assigned a “class” after Galileo discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610
- The Moon is believed to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago
- The strength of its gravitational field is about one-sixth of Earth’s gravity
- The Earth and Moon have “synchronous rotation”, which means we always see the same side of the Moon – hence the term “dark side of the moon”
- The surface of the Moon is actually dark, but it appears bright in the sky because of the reflective soil
- During a solar eclipse, the Moon covers the Sun almost completely. Both objects appear a similar size in the sky because the Sun is 400 times larger and further away
- The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was in 1959, as part of the Soviet Union’s lunar program.
- The first manned orbital mission was NASA’s Apollo 8 in 1968
- And the first manned lunar landing was in 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission.
A study published last month in Nature found evidence that the planet’s inner core has changed direction and is spinning more slowly.
Researchers believe it has been moving slower than Earth’s mantle and crust, rather than faster, since 2010.
And while this might affect the length of a day on Earth, it would be invisible in a lifetime – coming in at just thousandths of a second.