世界时（Universal Time，简称UT）是一种以格林尼治子夜起算的平太阳时。世界时是以地球自转为基准得到的时间尺度,其精度受到地球自转不均匀变化和极移的影响，为了解决这种影响，1955年国际天文联合会定义了UT0、UT1和UT2三个系统：

它们之间的关系可以表示为：

Universal Time (UT) is a time standard based on Earth's rotation. It is a modern continuation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), i.e., the mean solar time on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, London, UK. In fact, the expression "Universal Time" is ambiguous (when accuracy of better than a few seconds is required), as there are several versions of it, the most commonly used being Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and UT1 (see below). All of these versions of UT, except for UTC, are based on Earth's rotation relative to distant celestial objects (stars and quasars), but with a scaling factor and other adjustments to make them closer to solar time. UTC is based on International Atomic Time, with leap seconds added to keep it within 0.9 second of UT1.