I mean, this is the real answer here, but you can't just put them on UTC because of the relativity like we were discussing elsewhere, so it would still have to be a separate time zone for programming and timekeeping purposes, even if humans won't be able to tell the difference

[–] Fosheze@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So, just plonk an atomic clock on the moon and call that moon time. Ocasionally synchronize moon time with UTC.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

That's pretty close to what they're doing. The tricky bit is detailing how you convert a lunar timestamp to a terrestrial timestamp.

Jostling clocks with things like leap seconds turns out to be more trouble than it's really worth. Better to just let them get out of sync but be able to precisely define what the drift is.