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With all eyes on upcoming crewed missions to the moon for the first time in decades, NASA engineers are finally getting around to figuring out how much faster time moves up there.

If that sounds strange, its because it is, but that doesnt make it any less real. According to general relativity, the passage of time can be different within two different gravitational contexts. Specifically, the more powerful the gravity, the slower time moves, and vice versa.

That means that the relatively wide difference in mass between the Earth and its natural satellite does mean that time moves slower here on Earth. Before now, weve never really needed to actually calculate that time difference, but with more crewed missions and the prospect of permanent settlement on the lunar surface, all sorts of communication and navigation systems going between the two will need to be synchronized to account for this difference.

Back in April, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy set a 2026 deadline for establishing a Lunar Coordinated Time (LTC), similar to how we measure Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) here on Earth.

Now, a new paper posted to the pre-print Arxiv server, a team from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech worked out the math to establish a more precise measure of how much faster time is moving on the moon relative to Earth. Their result, that time on the moon moves 0.0000575 seconds (57.50 microseconds) faster, is a key step toward establishing a standardized LTC that engineers and other researchers can use to coordinate activity on the moon.

One of the keys to calculating the difference in time between the Earth and moon is to also take the differences in time between the Earth, moon, and the solar systems barycenterthe gravitational center around which the entire solar system orbits (including the sun).

By establishing a synchronized frame of reference between the Earth and the barycenter, the research team then performed a number of mathematical transforms to refine the time difference between the Earth and the moon beyond what had already by estimated to come to our most precise result yet.

With this new figure established, future lunar missions will hopefully go much more smoothly than they otherwise would, ensuring the safety of everyone involved.

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John Loeffler John is a writer and programmer living in New York City. He writes about computers, gadgetry, gaming, VR/AR, and related consumer technologies. You can find him on Twitter @thisdotjohn

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NASA calculates how much faster time moves on the lunar surface - Interesting Engineering