On January 1st and landing at a location where it is still 2024, passengers aboard aeroplanes that cross the International Date Line (IDL) will essentially “travel back in time.”
The International Date Line (IDL) is a hypothetical line that runs over the Pacific Ocean and divides locations with two distinct calendar dates, for those who are unaware.
Consider how Australia is essentially one day ahead of the UK; you lose a day when you go east over the date line. You gain a day if you’re going west. Easy, isn’t it?
According to the US National Ocean Service, nations are allowed to choose which dates they respect, and the IDL has no official international significance.
“While the date line generally runs north to south from pole to pole, it zigzags around political borders such as eastern Russia and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands,” it said.
“You kind of become a time traveler when you cross the date line! If you move west, it will be a day later; if you go back, you’ve “gone back in time.”
