what date it is now on the Moon?

[makc]

Does it have time zones like Earth, or does it use UCT time or whatever? Any international agreement on this, maybe?

[owlice]

First hit in Google for "moon time zones": http://lunarclock.org/convert-to-lunar- ... d-time.php

[makc]

[skip down]

[makc]

[and again]

[makc]

However,

The concept of the LST is suggested by LunarClock.org

http://lunarclock.org/lunar-standard-ti ... itions.php

Does this site really have any authority?

[owlice]

I don't know, makc; why don't you Google "moon time zones" and decide for yourself?

[owlice]

But here ya go, makc -- the second hit on Google for the suggested phrase is from Space.com: http://www.space.com/11162-10-surprisin ... moons.html

It answers your first question. As to whether Space.com has any authority, determining whether it does is left as an exercise for the questioner.

[makc]

why don't you Google "moon time zones" and decide for yourself?

Mainly because I am lazy, but also

Click to view full size image

I kinda hoped for the answer from someone who actually knows it, not just paste the question into google.

It answers your first question.

It only says "The moon has its own time zone" followed by some story about your president Nixon.

[Chris Peterson]

I kinda hoped for the answer from someone who actually knows it, not just paste the question into google.

"Time" can be either astronomical or legal. Any rotating body has an astronomical time, determined by the position of the Sun. No body other than the Earth has legal times (and even on Earth, legal time is really a collection of different legal standards, depending on location).

Scientists have adopted methods for defining astronomical time on other bodies in the Solar System, for convenience (for example, Martial sols). But these have no legal weight, and in many cases [Earth] Universal Time is the most commonly used- especially on the Moon. But context is important. If data were returned from some sort of radiometer on the Moon, for instance, it would be time stamped with UT, but that might be converted to a local solar time. But even then, the units of that time would be Earth units- hours, minutes, seconds- not some Lunar equivalent. Even on Mars, where we have come closest to caring about a daily cycle, sols are just solar day counts. All times within a sol are still measured in the usual Earth units (i.e. 1 sol = 24h 39m 35.2s). However, sols can be used to maintain a count of Martian days that is analogous to the Julian date (a count of Earth solar days). Using this analog, the Martian date can be expressed as a non-integer sol count, with the fractional portion determining the time of day. This could be done on the Moon as well (but isn't, as far as I know). But again, these are just methods chosen for convenience- loosely standardized if at all, and not carrying any legal weight.

I doubt that true local time systems will be used before people are actually living on a body, and are largely autonomous from immediate Earth-based control.

[+makc-]

legal aspect is also interesting. if human team ever goes on a body far, far away, and their times become out of sync due to relativity effects, how do you find if new earth law applies to actions carried out in another time frame?

[Chris Peterson]

legal aspect is also interesting. if human team ever goes on a body far, far away, and their times become out of sync due to relativity effects, how do you find if new earth law applies to actions carried out in another time frame?

I'd think that if they are far enough away that relativistic effects have taken place, they are pretty much on their own, and Earth law will be of little concern to them.

[THX1138]

Well, because of the reason of " Why Not "
If one were standing on direct center of both the north or the south pole the date might be a little tricky to figure out, ad that to the possibility of such taking place on our moon and? To say nothing of what the date or time would be on some other moon in the solar system. Taking the matter a step further, is there a time, let alone date were one in the direct center of the earth. Hmmmm.
I know only one thing for certain on this date and in PST, I'm off work today and I'm going surfing. Good day all.