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Why is there a different time in Australia? |
Time & Numbers
Can you find Australia on a map? It’s pretty far away from the United States – there are over 10,000 miles between the Australian city of Sydney and Boston, Massachusetts!
As bright and powerful as the Sun is, it can’t shine on the whole world at the same time. This is why the half of the Earth that faces the Sun has daytime, while the half that faces away has nighttime. Sydney and Boston are so far apart that they don’t usually face the Sun at the same time. Luckily the Earth spins around, and each part of the world gets time facing the Sun. No one is left in the dark for too long!
It would be pretty confusing if it was the same exact time everywhere in the world. People usually eat lunch around noon (12:00 pm). At noon in Boston the Sun is high in the sky, but the Sun has already set a long time ago in Australia. Most people there are asleep. Wouldn’t you be grumpy if someone woke you up in the middle of the night to eat lunch?
This is why we have Time Zones. The entire planet is divided up into these different zones with their own local times. This way, we can have lunch at noon with the Sun shining, and so can Australians. So can people everywhere in the world.
Most neighboring time zones have an hour difference in time, so if you are traveling and cross into a new time zone, you’ll have to change your watches. Otherwise, things will get pretty confusing!
USA, Coast to Coast
The Continental United States has four different time zones that are each an hour apart. In order of east to west, they are Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. At noon in the Eastern Time Zone, it is 11:00am in the Central Time Zone, 10:00am in the Mountain Time Zone, and 9:00am in the Pacific Time Zone.
Time Travel!
The “International Date Line” is an imaginary line that runs between Asia and North America through the Pacific Ocean. It’s shown on many world maps. See if you can find it. You can usually spot it because it zigzags between Russia and Alaska. It is a border between time zones, but this one does something pretty strange to the calendar: crossing it changes the day!
If you cross the International Date Line east to west, you have to add 24 hours to the time. 8:00am Friday becomes 8:00am Saturday.
If you cross it west to east, you subtract 24 hours. 8:00am Saturday becomes 8:00am Friday. If you like Fridays, you’re in luck, because you’ll get two in a row!