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Loading contentThe civil time standard, derived from International Atomic Time but kept within a second of the Earth's rotation by occasional leap seconds. Deep-space tracking tags its measurements in UTC.
time_standard:utcDataset membership
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Planned API: GET /api/v0/entities/time_standard:utc
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How Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) connects across Asteria Star — scientific, cultural, and astrological links are kept separate.
A continuous atomic timescale kept by hundreds of atomic clocks worldwide — the stable foundation from which civil time is derived. TAI never inserts leap seconds, making it ideal for measuring precise intervals.
NASA's international array of giant radio antennas — at Goldstone (California), Madrid, and Canberra — that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft and distant satellites, spaced around the globe for continuous coverage.
The form of Universal Time tied to the actual rotation of the Earth, measured from the positions of distant sources. Because the Earth's spin is slightly irregular and slowly slowing, UT1 drifts against the steady beat of atomic time.
The extra second occasionally inserted into Coordinated Universal Time to keep it within 0.9 seconds of UT1, so that civil clocks stay in step with the turning of the Earth. As atomic time and Earth rotation drift apart, leap seconds bridge the gap — a practice now being reconsidered.
A continuous count of days (and fractions) since noon Universal Time on 1 January 4713 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar, used throughout astronomy to timestamp observations without the awkwardness of calendar months and leap years. The Modified Julian Date (MJD = JD − 2400000.5) shifts the origin to a recent midnight for convenience.
Time kept by the real Sun, as a sundial shows it — noon is the moment the Sun crosses the meridian. Because the Earth's orbit is elliptical and tilted, the Sun runs fast or slow through the year, so clocks keep mean solar time instead, differing by up to about a quarter of an hour.
The time coordinate of the Solar System barycentre, used as the independent variable of the planetary ephemerides. It differs from Terrestrial Time only by small periodic terms arising from the Earth's motion around the Sun, never drifting by more than a couple of milliseconds.
The continuous timescale of the Global Positioning System, offset from TAI by a fixed number of seconds and widely used to synchronise ground equipment.
A continuous atomic timescale kept by hundreds of atomic clocks worldwide — the stable foundation from which civil time is derived. TAI never inserts leap seconds, making it ideal for measuring precise intervals.
A continuous count of days (and fractions) since noon Universal Time on 1 January 4713 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar, used throughout astronomy to timestamp observations without the awkwardness of calendar months and leap years. The Modified Julian Date (MJD = JD − 2400000.5) shifts the origin to a recent midnight for convenience.
Time kept by the stars rather than the Sun — it measures the Earth's rotation relative to the fixed sky. A sidereal day is about four minutes shorter than a solar day, because the Earth must turn a little further each day to face the Sun again as it moves along its orbit.
Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
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