Astronauts' watches – Questions and answers with David Saint-Jacques live from space

Uploaded on July 26, 2019

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Astronauts' watches – Questions and answers with David Saint-Jacques live from space

2019-07-26 - During a videoconference, Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques answers the following questions from a social media follower:

Why do astronauts sometimes have two wrist watches? What time zone is your watch set to and why? (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Jonathan: Why do astronauts sometimes have two wrist watches? What time zone is your watch set to and why?

David Saint-Jacques: Aha! Yes! You’re probably curious as to why I have two watches, right? I often have two. In fact, one of them is a real watch. Here, I’ll show you. One of them is real and the other is actually a science experiment. It tells time, but it also measures temperature. It measures movement. It measures ambient noise. So it’s like a small sensor for the sensory environment I’m in. And that’s why it seems like I’m wearing two watches.

The time on my watch? So, here, we are on British time, also known as Universal Time. It’s the zero meridian. So, right now, on board, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon. We are therefore on the same time as some European countries. It’s halfway between Houston and Moscow, where the two mission control centres are located. By using this time, we’re right in the middle.

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