    aliases:
      - SGTU

# Standard Galactic Time Unit

The Standard Galactic Time Unit or SGTU is the time unit used for standard communication of time across the many planets and polities of the Galactic Cooperation Treaty Organisation.

It is defined as followed:

SGTU quantities are oft expressed either in binary (for the computers), or hexadecimal (for the normal folks) 1 SGTU is the length periods of the wavelength emitted by the Ly-α transition of the Hydrogen atom. This amounts to about 1.74µs

SGTU Timestamps are expressed as a the number of SGTU elapsed since the founding of the GCTO. when written they are typically written in groups of 4 hex digits followed by another delimiter and the number of groups the precision omits, the last group may also contain less than 4 digits in which case the lowest significant digits are assumed to be omitted. e.g. `123F.12/1` is assumed to be equivalent to `123F.12XX.XXXX` (where X is not specified). the start of the timestamp may also be omitted when redundant, in practice it is rare that more than 2 or 3 groups are ever written, unless the activity requires full precision and/or disambiguation.

example:

30 September 2065, 13:12 UTC+2 would be oft rendered as `3D13.65/1` or `18F.3D13.6556.6AD9` for full specificity