White House asks NASA to create lunar time zone

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has tasked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with creating a time zone for the moon to help with space missions in the future.

Writing to NASA, OSTP chief Arati Prabhakar said that the establishment of Coordinated Lunar Time is "fundamental to the scientific discovery, economic development, and international collaboration," according to The Hill.

"Due to general and special relativity, the length of a second defined on Earth will appear distorted to an observer under different gravitational conditions, or to an observer moving at a high relative velocity," he added.

The directive comes as NASA prepares its Artemis program to return humans to the moon in the relatively near future. The name "Artemis" is an homage to twin sister of the Greek god Apollo, for whom the original series of lunar landings was named.

To further pave the way for such an endeavor, NASA has been partnering with private space firms to accomplish more modest missions, which included the landing of the Odysseus craft on the moon in February.

Other nations have also pursued lunar operations in recent years, including Russia, whose Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon in 2023, and India, which successfully landed a rover days later.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.