An astronaut lands on the Moon after a 3-day journey to the Earth’s celestial satellite. In his journal, he marks the date and time. However he doesn’t put the time as Eastern Standard Time, he marks it as Lunar Standard Time. Currently, a moon mission runs on the time of the country operating the spacecraft. The European Space Agency wants to change that.

The idea of a Lunar time zone was originally brought up at a meeting of major space agencies last year in the Netherlands. While it may seem like a simple task to assign a time zone to the moon it is no small feat. That’s because clocks run faster on the Moon, gaining about 56 microseconds each day. In addition, a single day on the Moon is 29.53 Earth Days long, this further complicates the attempt to add a lunar time zone.

With humanity once again attempting to send people to the Moon, a Lunar Time Zone is necessary and must be implemented despite its difficulties. If it is not then operating several moon missions from separate countries will be confusing with each nation claiming it is a different time. Perhaps if the Lunar Time Zone proves successful space agencies will begin looking into Mars Standard Time.