EarthSky // FAQs // Space By EarthSky Aug 14, 2008

Is midnight considered today or tomorrow?

12 o’clock a.m. and 12 o’clock p.m. mean different things to different people across the world. It’s better to say noon or midnight.

Midnight – and noon – aren’t defined as a.m. or p.m. You can talk about 12:01 a.m., and you can talk about 12:01 p.m., but 12 o’clock a.m. and 12 o’clock p.m. mean different things to different people. It’s better to say noon or midnight.

Also, if you wonder whether tonight’s midnight really belong to tonight – or to tomorrow morning: astronomers and the military use a system in which midnight is 0 hours. In that system, tonight’s midnight is the first moment of tomorrow. But as for the rest of us – there’s no official answer. That’s why airlines always schedule flights for 11:59 p.m. or 12:01 a.m. – never midnight.

Share your comments on Facebook

One Response to Is midnight considered today or tomorrow?

  1. mr.a says:

    for us midnight is the one milla second point in time so there really is no midnight just 11:59 and 12:00 so midnight is like doesn’t exist but im not sure on noon…

Share your comments on EarthSky

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>