German scientists have outlined a technique for using pulsars as an interplanetary and interstellar GPS system.
German scientists have outlined a technique for using pulsars as an interplanetary and interstellar GPS system.
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German scientists have outlined a technique for using pulsars as an interplanetary and interstellar GPS system.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Technology and real science finally catch up to science fiction again.
It would be great if they could get the whole system to work with a small array of simple cheap tiny CCD cameras and a good processor.
atomic time clock accuracy in deep space, indeed it would be a natural gps system!
Didn’t you have a recent post on the unexpected variability of some pulsars?
Yes, but the pulsars that suddenly change their rotation rate are rare, unusual, and easy to spot. The pulsars that would be used for this interstellar GPS technique are the more common variety pulsars, remarkably reliable and precise in their pulses.
Not to suggest that any pulsar is common. No matter what, these are very strange beasts in the zoo of interstellar objects out there.