00:00What time is it right now? Depending on where you are on Earth, that will change.
00:07But did you know that Earth has a planetary universal time?
00:10It's useful if you are a human but you might not be on Earth, rather floating above it.
00:14But what about when you get even further away? Or maybe someday live further away?
00:18As humankind edges ever closer to revisiting and likely setting up a base on the moon,
00:22experts are now calling for a time zone for the lunar surface.
00:25The ESA has been advocating for a standardized lunar time zone for a while,
00:29and recently the first steps have been taken.
00:31But why is it important?
00:32Well, soon, unmanned landers by NASA, ESA and Japan and Canada's space programs
00:37will all have landers on the moon simultaneously.
00:39Many of them have joint missions.
00:41However, their space agencies are spread out in multiple time zones around the world.
00:45Not to mention it takes time for messages to travel 240,000 miles from the lunar surface back to us on Earth.
00:51But there's a catch. Normal clocks run differently on the moon,
00:54meaning we need a way to keep proper time while on the ground on the lunar surface.
00:58With the head of strategic planning at ESA saying about it,
01:01This will be quite a challenge on a planetary surface where in the equatorial region,
01:05each day is 29.5 days long, including freezing fortnight-long lunar nights,
01:10with the whole of Earth just a small blue circle in the dark sky.
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